Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Folder sharing in Windows XP is relatively simple. It’s done by right clicking on a folder to get its properties then, in the sharing tab, give it a share name and (if needed) a comment. Unfortunately it’s not always that simple in Linux. In recent years though, Ubuntu has made folder sharing just as easy, but that can also depend on which desktop you use.
Kubuntu
Almost identical to Windows XP in that you right click a folder, choose properties, then click the ‘Share’ tab to gain access to folder sharing.
In this tab you can check the box (if required) to share with Windows, give the share a name, allow/disallow guests and whether to allow full control, read only control or deny on a per user basis. If you don’t see a ‘Share’ tab (and you’re not asked to do so) you may need to install SAMBA using your package manager.
Should you need to assign a login/password to your network (and I think you should) this is set in K > System Settings > Sharing >
To connect to a Windows machine you open Dolphin (the KDE file manager) and click Network (in the left panel), then Samba Shares, finally Workgroup, and you should now see a list of available machines to connect to. Double click the machine and you’ll see the list of shared folders on that machine.
Note that above the folders you see smb:xxxxxxxxxx - that smb means SAMBA and reminds me that I’m browsing the network.
Gnome-Shell and Unity
The Gnome-Shell variant also uses Samba to connect to other network components. This means when you want to share files and/or folders over your network you need to have Samba installed.
When you right-click a folder (which you want to share) in the file manager, a drop-down menu appears and one of the possible choices is Sharing Options. When you choose this item and Samba is not installed, you receive a message you need to install it.
Installing is easy, just follow the wizard that guides you through the installation process.
Installing Samba has one downside: you need to reboot afterwards so the program can read the config file and knows what to do and how to do it.
Once Samba is installed and the computer has rebooted you can return to the file-manager and right-click the folder you want to share. Click Sharing Options again, tick the tickbox “Share this Folder”, choose a good name for the share, decide if other users have the right to create and delete files in the share and if non-registered users have access. Finish with the button Modify Share.
Now it should be possible to open Network in the left column of the file-manager, choose workgroup and see which computers are online and which folders they have shared.
Once shared, the icon of the shared folder shows a double arrow indicating data can flow both ways to and from the folder.
Xfce
The Xubuntu desktop with Xfce comes with Thunar as a file manager, which currently does not offer direct access to manipulating the sharing properties of files and folders. There is currently a thunar-shares-plugin project, but it is not packaged for Xubuntu at this time so has to be installed from source and manually configured, the author has not tested it.
Instead, you can install samba manually and configure it to serve the folders you wish to share. Alternatively, you can install a file manager from Gnome, called Nautilus, with sharing – by installing the nautilus, nautilus-share and samba packages. You can then launch Nautilus and navigate to “Sharing Options” for the folder you wish to share, just like you would in Gnome-Shell.
LXDE
Once again, in keeping with the “light-weight“ nature of Lubuntu, the default installation does not include the software to facilitate file sharing; however, as with all other “optional” applications in Lubuntu, all the software required to share files (e.g. NFS support, Giver, Samba, etc.) between multiple Linux boxes and/or Linux and other OS’s (e.g. MS Windows, OSX, etc.) is readily available from the repositories. Also, the lightweight file manager that comes standard with LXDE - PCManFM - has no default integrated capabilities to allow you to configure the sharing of files or folders; however, if Samba is installed, then you can access and navigate Samba shares directly from within PCManFM by typing the IP address of the target Samba share into the address field in PCManFM.
Also note that if you choose to install Samba and/or NFS support, then not only can you manage file/folder sharing with those packages’ respective management tools (and from the command line, of course), you can install the very small and simple Lubuntu Control Center (LCC) application which, among other things, provides a very simple and fast utility to create/manage shared folders.
You can certainly install LCC even without file sharing installed so that you can benefit from its other features; however, if you click on the Share icon in the LCC, then a dialog box will pop up notifying you that you do not have file sharing services installed and it will offer to install one or more services for you.
It should be obvious by now that the “tag line” for Lubuntu (and most other “lightweight” distros) is “It can change to meet your needs”. If you are looking for a “lightweight” distro, then you should expect to have a “stripped down model” [of Linux]. That’s why you chose a lightweight distro in the first place, right? (The answer is “Yes”.) But because most of these distros (like Lubuntu) were made “light” by eliminating lots of “software overhead” and by using utilitarian equivalents to basic (and indispensable) applications like file managers and web browsers, you are free to “fatten them up” to your heart’s content from the repositories. Of course, if you wanted “fat” to begin with, you wouldn’t have chosen a “lightweight” distro in the first place. But it is important to know that as your needs change and you require functionality that is not available in Lubuntu by default, it is immediately available to you via the repositories. This “malleability” of Linux is one of its greatest strengths and accounts for the myriad “shapes and sizes” of Linux distros available. And let’s not forget that none of this would be possible without the open source development model.