The Sikh Geek

Don’t you just love it when things just work together, well I do! I recently wrote about using Ubuntu 8.04 and saw a great post by Girish entitled Ubuntu 8.04 on SBS 2003 network, so I thought I’d try this with SBS 2008 and it works! I previously couldn’t browse the domain using smb4k using Konqueror which uses Samba.

Girish used the likewise-open package and uses the the command line apt-get install but I used the Synaptic Package Manager from System -> Administration and then click on search and type "likewise" and install the likewise-open and likewise-open-gui packages. Once installed under System -> Administration select likewise. When joining the domain use the domainname.local format as domainname by itself didn’t work.

Modify the startup scripts as outlined by Girish and reboot. When logging  in use a domain login in the format domainname\username.

You can map your network shares using Nautilus by going to Places -> Network and on the File Browser select File -> Connect to Server and change Service Type to Windows share and complete the following info

Server

Share

Folder

User Name

Domain Name

You’ll be asked for a password which is the username’s domain password. When selecting the new Share icon you might be asked to authenticate again and make sure it has the right domain name and select remember password. You can  then browse through your Shares, open files, etc. One issue I found when trying to open Office files is that OpenOffice.org 2.4 asks for authentication again but defaults to "WORKGROUP" and I don’t know how to change that. To workaround this you can copy the file locally to work on it and copy back.

I’d never heard of Likewise but this is a great find by Girish! Now just need Evolution to work with Exchange Server 2007 and we’re rocking and rolling!