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Hello,

maybe it already exists but i did not find it.

Everything is in the title, it would be great to add in KDE a tool which could easily mount network shares like CIFS, SFTP.
It would auto-manage all the boring technical details like :
- codepage, smbpassword, etc. in CIFS
- auto-mount/unmount SFTP shares like FUSE does

It seems essential to me to improve network experience.

Stefadji

Stefadji wrote:Hello,
maybe it already exists but i did not find it.

- auto-mount/unmount SFTP shares like FUSE does
It seems essential to me to improve network experience.
Stefadji

I totally agree to the lack of something like this integrated into most distros. But I strongly disagree in putting it into KDE or Gnome. This is the domain of the underlying filesystem structure, who specifically must be responsible for the mounting is still a bit cloudy to me.
At the moment we can sortof do this with fish:// and smb:// but its not consistent over all apps, like GIMP, OpenOffice, Firefox (GTK apps) will all choke on fish://

mannemerak wrote:

Stefadji wrote:Hello,
maybe it already exists but i did not find it.

- auto-mount/unmount SFTP shares like FUSE does
It seems essential to me to improve network experience.
Stefadji

I totally agree to the lack of something like this integrated into most distros. But I strongly disagree in putting it into KDE or Gnome. This is the domain of the underlying filesystem structure, who specifically must be responsible for the mounting is still a bit cloudy to me.
At the moment we can sortof do this with fish:// and smb:// but its not consistent over all apps, like GIMP, OpenOffice, Firefox (GTK apps) will all choke on fish://

It also happened to me on konqueror, but that was 4.1.2. since then i never bother with that protocol again.

In Kickoff AL > Applications > Network folder wizard can be used to browse cifs, ftp, ssh, and webdav.

umarzuki wrote:

mannemerak wrote:

Stefadji wrote:Hello,
maybe it already exists but i did not find it.

- auto-mount/unmount SFTP shares like FUSE does
It seems essential to me to improve network experience.
Stefadji

I totally agree to the lack of something like this integrated into most distros. But I strongly disagree in putting it into KDE or Gnome. This is the domain of the underlying filesystem structure, who specifically must be responsible for the mounting is still a bit cloudy to me.
At the moment we can sortof do this with fish:// and smb:// but its not consistent over all apps, like GIMP, OpenOffice, Firefox (GTK apps) will all choke on fish://

It also happened to me on konqueror, but that was 4.1.2. since then i never bother with that protocol again.

In Kickoff AL > Applications > Network folder wizard can be used to browse cifs, ftp, ssh, and webdav.

Network folder only creates a link to SMB or whatever you specified.

I would like to see network share mounts done as easy as USB mounts are done these days. I just pop in my USB stick and it is mounted under /media. Same should happen when requesting a share on the network - when clicking on a network icon in KDE or Gnome file dialog a window should popup and show discovered shares (if applicable) ask credentials and when successful the share will be mounted at /media/network/servername/sharename (or something like that). The share will stay connected
You can do this with SMB4K, but its a standalone app and all manual - and I couldn't yet figure out how to mount without running it as root.

the browsing capability of dolphin and konqueror is really nice - but it is not sufficient!

For example, I am editing documents with lyx. Lyx does include many files, like images or sty files. It is possible to open and edit the .lyx file with lyx, but it want show images nor include the required style files - and latex will not be able to run.

The only option I found so far, is to manually mount the share. As a user, I do not want to spend time on how I have to mount it (the same command used to work for samba, but it does not anymore for cifs). Anyway this belongs to cifs.mount and not the KDE. But I believe that KDE should be able to make such things easier and user friendly.

Therefore, there should definitely be a graphical user interface, which requires only the information of the share, username and password. I don't know where it should be integrated, in system settings or in dolphin.

don't get me wrong, I am using KDE since 1.0 and I love the new KDE 4.x. But interestingly, the amount of time I have to spend to get things working after an update/upgrade is still too long.

mannemerak wrote:
> But I strongly disagree in putting it into KDE or Gnome.
> This is the domain of the underlying filesystem structure,
> who specifically must be responsible for the mounting is
> still a bit cloudy to me.

I disagree; I think the DEs should add this functionality and the distros can select how to implement it with compile-time flags. If we wait for the underlying systems to build GUIs, we'll never have them as that isn't their job.

Off topic, but this is the same argument/counterargument for DEs to have (or not) X.org config GUIs. I strongly support the move for DEs to build these since X.org isn't ever going to do so. Without such tools, average computer users will never use Linux since they're forced to do CLI work.

Note, I don't code so my support is a vocal one, not a code-submission one.

kroman wrote:the browsing capability of dolphin and konqueror is really nice - but it is not sufficient!

For example, I am editing documents with lyx. Lyx does include many files, like images or sty files. It is possible to open and edit the .lyx file with lyx, but it want show images nor include the required style files - and latex will not be able to run.

The only option I found so far, is to manually mount the share.

Two suggestions - if you mount the share within fstab it will be seen in the same way as any other set of directories. If you don't want it permanently mounted, have you considered smb4k?

Two suggestions - if you mount the share within fstab it will be seen in the same way as any other set of directories. If you don't want it permanently mounted, have you considered smb4k?

Thank you very much for the suggestions. Actually at work I have all the samba-shares in my fstab and it works fine there. And I acutally wasn't aware of the smb4k. That actually makes a really good first impression.

I still strongly believe, that KDE should have such an easy feature as 'map network drive'. I still dream of the day, that I can install KDE and linux on the computers of my parents and my sister. As long as the only solution is to edit fstab, as long I will not consider it.

I usually could solve every problem I encountered if I insisted on solving it. As a student, I had fun to solve the problems, however, now I just want a running system and to do my work as fast as possible. To give an example, for KDE 4.0 and KDE4.1 I wrote a script using ifup and ifdown to get my wireless connection working. For KDE4.3 the scripts weren't working anylonger and after hacking an afternoon on the problem I decided to buy a cable instead. Interestingly, wireless connection just works now the first time out-of-the box since KDE4.6 -- unfortunately to the expense of having no sound now. Conclusion, so far linux and KDE is only for the advanced users. Don't get me wrong, KDE4 is wonderful - a masterpiece and it improved a lot! For instance, its easy to mount a usb stick (I can remember the time, when mounting a usb stick was a matter of hours and not seconds). But KDE is not yet there, that it can be used for everybody. To bring it to that level, there should be simple solutions to any simple problem - such as mounting a the samba share.

annew wrote:

kroman wrote:the browsing capability of dolphin and konqueror is really nice - but it is not sufficient!

For example, I am editing documents with lyx. Lyx does include many files, like images or sty files. It is possible to open and edit the .lyx file with lyx, but it want show images nor include the required style files - and latex will not be able to run.

The only option I found so far, is to manually mount the share.

Two suggestions - if you mount the share within fstab it will be seen in the same way as any other set of directories. If you don't want it permanently mounted, have you considered smb4k?

smb4k works perfectly for me! It's really a great software! Once the bookmark is made, its even faster to mount and unmount than in windows if accessed via the panel. What about adding the smb4k directly under System Settings -> Network and Connectivity.

However, a shortcut, which only prompts for hostname and password would be handy.

kroman wrote:smb4k works perfectly for me! It's really a great software! Once the bookmark is made, its even faster to mount and unmount than in windows if accessed via the panel. What about adding the smb4k directly under System Settings -> Network and Connectivity.

However, a shortcut, which only prompts for hostname and password would be handy.

smb4k is a third-party application. Unless you can persuade the authors that it would be a good idea to get it into mainstream KDE packages, I'm afraid it won't appear in System Settings.

It's quite a few years since I first met it, and the fact that it is still working, rock-solid, after all this time is truly impressive. I wish it were better known.

It's a good idea!
With this option i not need to configure fstab or more other file.
@kb_sc1

Alex Fiestas has begun working on a KCM module, with the first version shipping in Netrunner 4.2:
https://launchpad.net/samba-mounter

Deb-packages are available at the blue-shell/samba-mounter PPA:
https://launchpad.net/~blue-shell/+arch ... /+packages