My home network includes a Linux fileserver that exports a number of SMB shares.
From a Windows client I can use files and directories on these transparently. I can just type or browse to a UNC filepath of the form \\servername\sharename\... from almost any application and it “just works”
The experience is not the same in Ubuntu “out of the box”. Dolphin can access SMB shares but other apps don’t have a “Network” section in their file navigators, and copying a path from Dolphin to another app results in a filepath of the form smb://servername.local/sharename/... that those apps can’t use.
Ubuntu Version:
6.11.0-17-generic #17~24.04.2-Ubuntu
Desktop Environment (if applicable):
KDE Plasma
Problem Description:
Applications other than Dolphin cannot access files on SMB shares transparently
Relevant System Information:
Screenshots or Error Messages:
What I’ve Tried:
From what I have found on the net e.g.- https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/ra3ery/get_kde_dolphin_properly_working_with_smb_shares/ it appears that what I’m missing is the kio-fusepackage which enables auto-mounting of “foreign” filesystems including SMB/CIFS
However-
- That Reddit post is 3 years old, so things could have changed
- “apt search” confirms that I do already have the
kio-fuse 5.0.1package installed, so it seems it’s present but somehow not active/enabled?
$ locate kio-fuse.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/kio-fuse.service
systemctl | grep running | grep kio
(no output)
seems to confirm that.
This seems like a very “vanilla” use case, so i’m surprised to not find any obvious search hits on the subject here. I’m also frankly surprised that a feature like this would not be enabled by default, but maybe there are side effects that need to considered? Or even maybe a better option?
Anyway, any ideas would be very welcome.