Hi KDE users and devs!

Today I wanted to create a samba share with Dolphin and discovered that this is much easier said than done and seems to have a long way to go - at least in KDE 4.8.4 - to catch up with the simplicity of doing the same under Windows XP (or later). I already know how to do this easily enough (well, easier) using SWAT so I've created this thread for a few reasons:

a) To try and discover the easiest way to do this with Dolphin under Debian Wheezy as I've not been able to find any up-to-date docs for this process. Ideally, installing/using SWAT, hand editing smb.conf or having to use any other samba commands should not be required to get simple sharing working seeing as XP is over a decade old and KDE even older.

b) To find out if anything has improved in 4.9 re creating samba shares?

c) If nothing has improved since 4.8.4, find out if there plans to improve this aspect of KDE/Dolphin?

d) Help the KDE devs better document and simplify this currently tricky but commonly required feature

My first suggestion to help improve the situation as I have found it under 4.8.4 is that there should always be a 'Share' tab visible in the properties window of a dolphin folder. Under Debian, I think it is required that the user installs at least both samba and kdenetwork-filesharing before this tab appears so if those packages (plus any others that may be required to get this working) aren't installed then there should be a notice in the share tab stating that these extra packages are required before sharing can be enabled. I realise distros sometimes use different package names etc but just giving the Debian and RedHat package names (if they are different) should be enough of a clue for users of most distros.

I've installed those packages and Dolphin seems to let me share folders now but it isn't actually working yet even though Dolphin doesn't display any errors via dialogue nor on the console (I launched Dolphin from the terminal to see if it would give me some useful error messages but it hasn't). I haven't used SWAT or setup samba in a while now but I suspect its still not working because I also have to create a samba user on the machine hosting the share and/or add my user to a samba group or something but it seems that Dolphin offers no assistance or even hints in how the user should do this, if it is required, and ideally it would offer to do this for you too. If using the terminal is unavoidable, KDE could at least tell you what commands are required. Is this planned or present already in 4.9?

Is anyone aware of an up-to-date (ie KDE 4.8 or later), working and farely idiot-proof guide to getting Dolphins sharing to work with minimal fuss under Debian (or Ubuntu)? I was expecting to see a sticky on setting up samba shares in the KDE networking forum so once I get this working I'll write one if no-one else does.

Thanks!

Dan

Writing a thread regarding what packages to install for those distributions that don't install them by default would definitely be appreciated.

Unfortunately due to the plugable nature of KDE, it would not be easy to provide a placeholder tab - as there would not be a way to hide it when the real plugin was installed.

From what I recall, Kubuntu at least had it setup in such a way where once simply needed to install and enable sharing, and you were ready to go.

Hi bcooksley!

"Unfortunately due to the plugable nature of KDE, it would not be easy to provide a placeholder tab - as there would not be a way to hide it when the real plugin was installed."

That is blatantly untrue because as I have already mentioned, the 'share' tab is hidden if the user doesn't have at least the kdenetwork-filesharing package installed under Debian and I presume this is the same under Ubuntu too as its based upon Debian.

It seems you mis-read my first suggestion to help improve the current situation because what I suggested is that the share tab ALWAYS be visible so that users know this feature is available but if the necessary packages are not installed then instead of showing any share options the tab would simply inform the user of what packages need to be installed before sharing can be enabled. Alternately, the share options could be 'greyed out' with the required packages notification displayed below or above the share options.

In addition, I suspect this tab needs some additional functionality to auto-create samba users and whatever else is required to actually make a share work as the outdated guides I've found so far for doing this all seem to suggest the user has to issue various terminal commands/ edit smb.conf too before thre share will actually work. Hopefully I'm wrong!

The kdenetwork-filesharing package contains the plugin in question I believe. That is why it appears when the package is installed. The vast majority of KDE is assembled from plugins, providing functionality such as this.

For instance, all the control panels in System Settings, Applets/Panels/Wallpapers in Plasma, Runners in KRunner, Audio backends in KMix, Thumbnail generators used in file pickers and managers, Protocols supported by KIO, etc are all plugins. My system has 829 plugins registered.

The share tab is designed to be used with a "usershare" enabled Samba I believe, and was intended to work with basic security (ie. guest access) I think.

I understand what you are saying about KDE plugins and I also realise that some distros may include the kdenetwork-filesharing plugin by default with KDE. However, this aspect of Dolphin/KDE will not work without also having at least samba (maybe it needs winbind too?) installed which is not a part of KDE and so cannot be expected to always be installed hence the need for a notification as we all know most people don't read docs even when they are easily available!

I know its 'obvious' to us experienced Linux users that you'd need to have samba installed for this to work but new Linux users wouldn't have a clue and creating a network share isn't even mentioned in the Dolphin handbook atm. I have mailed Frank Reininghaus who I understand is the new Dolphin maintainer and alerted him of this thread so hopefully he'll reply soon.

danboid wrote:I have mailed Frank Reininghaus who I understand is the new Dolphin maintainer and alerted him of this thread so hopefully he'll reply soon.

I'm afraid I can't say much of any use about this. Neither the Properties dialog nor the mentioned plugin are actually part of Dolphin, and I've never used Samba myself. Therefore, I think that this should better be discussed with the maintainer of the plugin.

Hi Frank!

I have contacted the authors of the samba plugin and alerted them to this thread so hopefully they'll respond soon!

Thanks!

DM

I've just heard from Rodrigo who is the current maintainer of the samba plugin. He's just started a new job so he's been too busy for KDE dev recently but he plans to return in a few weeks with a new GUI which I'll help him test and design.

If we can get this working well and the extra find options I requested earlier today get implemented too then we'll have a few less reasons to open Konsole (or alternate file managers) and Dolphin will truly be doing justice to our amazing ceatcean pals!

I can verify that on my system (with the kdenetwork-filesharing module built + installed) that it does offer to install Samba if it is not installed.

Hi bcooksey!

You're right although I can't get kpackagekit working under Debian Wheezy - I get the impression it hasn't made it into the Deb repos yet. I have installed apper and packagekit (which I had to install myself hence kinda defeating the point of the whole thing) but when I click 'Install Samba' it asks me to check if packagekit is properly installed. If I or any other Debian users need to compile and install kpackagekit manually then its a lot easier just to manually install samba.

However, this is a less than ideal situation IMO even if the samba install option did work because the share tab doesn't appear until the kdenetwork-filesharing plugin is which doesn't get installed with KDE by default under Debian so I may have to put a request in with the Debian KDE packagers to include this plugin as part of the KDE plasma desktop meta-package as its only small yet an expected feature of a modern desktop file manager - at least since 2001/XP.