Kubuntu 7-10 frustrations

[Daniel Mons]

Jaydear wrote:
> I'd really like to get K7-10 up and running, but IMO it's not
> friendly. Maybe I've been spoiled by friendly OS-X and various Windows
> iterations. The Samba thing is way too frustrating. Over the years
> I've set up plenty of PCs (Win 3.11 through to XP) and more recently
> Macs and got the networking fine tuned and on the www without dramas
> or any tech support, so why is setting up the same thing on Kubuntu so
> bleeding hard?
> 

My first suggestion to you is to use Ubuntu.  Kubuntu is a wonderful 
product, but like it or not it is not the official distribution.  All of 
the baseline documentation is written for Ubuntu.

https://help.ubuntu.com/

Normally choice of desktop would be the least important thing I discuss 
when choosing a Linux distribution, but from your post you seem to be 
heavily geared towards the GUI, and need to have the tools do the work 
for you.  All of what you desire can be achieved through the console and 
manually setting up services, but again you've come across as a 
GUI-focussed user (and that's not a bad thing, either).

Setting up Samba in Ubuntu 7.10 is as trivial as clicking System -> 
Administration -> Shared Folders.  From here you click "Add" to add the 
folders on your hard disk you want to share, and you're done.  Your 
machine will broadcast itself on your network, and other Windows, Linux 
and Mac machines will be able to connect to it.

If you want to connect to other Windows machines, simply click Places -> 
Network, wait a few seconds as your machine scans your local network, 
and all of your Windows machines (as well as Macs if you have them 
sharing via SMB) will appear for browsing.

So again, while I applaud you for taking the plunge into Linux, make 
your first port of call a distribution with good, official 
documentation.  I link you once more to the main Ubuntu help pages:
https://help.ubuntu.com/

These concentrate on the default Ubuntu distribution (GNOME desktop), 
and if you are very new to Linux, I highly recommend limiting your 
choices by available documentation rather than by preference of desktop. 
  Once you're practised in the black arts of the penguin, you can always 
install the KDE desktop (ie: the thing that makes Kubuntu different to 
Ubuntu) at a later date.

-Dan