Here’s a quick tutorial that will show you how to share files between Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) computers.
If you have just installed Windows 8 and you want to have your other machines, including Ubuntu access files and folders remotely, you may have to enable file sharing. File sharing also works properly if all your machines are part of the same workgroup. That means, if your Windows 8 machine is a member of the Penguin workgroup, you should also make Ubuntu a member of Penguin.
To learn how to change workgroup name in Windows 8, please click here. To learn how to change workgroup name in Ubuntu 12.10, please click here.
Before going further, we want to make sure file sharing is enabled in Windows 8. If this feature isn’t enabled, you won’t be able to access files from other systems. So, to get started, let’s first enable files sharing in Windows 8.
Enabling File Sharing in Windows 8
To enable file sharing in Windows 8, sign and press the Windows Key + W keys on your keyboard to open the Charms bar for search settings.
When it opens, search for ‘manage advanced sharing’, then select the result on the left.
Next, turn on file and printer sharing in your private and public network profiles. To be more open, you can turn on file sharing on all networks profile. Save when done.
Now that filesharing is enabled, logon to your Ubuntu machine and install these Samba packages. Ubuntu uses Samba to share file and printer with Windows.
Enabling File Sharing in Ubuntu 12.10
To enable file sharing in Ubuntu, press Ctrl – Alt – T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below to install these packages.
sudo apt-get install system-config-samba
After installing the above packages, go to Dash and launch Samba.
When it opens, select ‘Preferences –> Server Settings’
Then type the workgroup name that your Windows machine belongs. Both machines must be a member of the same workgroup for this to work properly.
Now that both systems are member of the same workgroup, restart them both. When you login, you should be able to see each system from either machines.
Enjoy!
That’s how you enable file sharing in Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10. In my next post, I’ll show you how to enable shares.
In this post, both systems are able to see each other resources, but no shares are yet available with the right access. You must enable shares on both system in order to be able to access them.
Please stay tuned.
