Ubuntu

How to mount Windows (SMB) shares on Ubuntu Linux

Posted on April 30th, 2010 by David Luhman and tagged , .

Here's how to mount SMB (Windows) shares on an Ubuntu system. Most of this assumes you're the root user. You may have to prepend 'sudo' to many commands depending on your situation.

First, you may have to install the following :

  • # apt-get install smbfs smbclient

You can do a simple interactive connect with this :

  • # smbclient \\YOUR_SERVER\myusername-U myusername -W YOUR_WORKGROUP

This will at least show the SMB share is reachable.

Next, to enable auto-mounting on system start, you'll want to add one of the following to your /etc/fstab file :

Dual-boot Ubuntu Linux on a Windows laptop

Posted on June 27th, 2009 by David Luhman and tagged , .

I wanted to turn an old laptop from a Windows XP system to one that dual-booted Ubuntu. To get this to work, I first had to resize my Windows partition.

I started out with Windows default disk defragmenter (Accessories => System Tools => Disk Defragmenter). I ran it a few times, but it always left files at the "high end" of the partition so I couldn't downsize the partition.

I then tried Defraggler (http://defraggler.com). This maybe is a bit better at defragmenting, but still left files at the high-end of the partition.