Inability to browse Windows shares.

[Fabian Rodriguez]

Hi Mark,

It's refreshing to see an actual principal of a school taking the time 
to even subscribe to a developer's mailing list. Thank you for taking 
the time to share your frustration and concerns.

I suspect you will be highly disappointed of the answers you get here, 
unless you become an active part of the solution to the bug from the 
developers point of view. I also see several Canonical people subscribed 
to the bug, so I know it is being taken seriously. This being "release 
time", they may be busier than usual so that may also affect how this 
bug is worked on by anyone involved.

If you wish to follow the community path to resolution of this issue, 
I'd suggest:

- Subscribing your IT staff to the bug report

- Getting familiar with the Ubuntu release cycles and why some bugs 
solutions don't show up before 6-12 months:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

- Getting familiar with the relationship with "upstream" products and 
how collaboration/resolution happens at those levels. Jono Bacon and 
Jorge Castro wrote something about how we try to improve that relationship
http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1302
http://stompbox.typepad.com/blog/2008/09/introducing-the.html

- Assign your IT staff time to provide a thorough, detailed list of 
steps to reproduce the bug including details of your configuration. 
Becoming part of bug reporting teams may greatly improve your handling 
of future / current issues. I wrote something about that a few months ago:
http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/blog/2008/01/18/the-bug-reporting-culture-10-things-to-avoid-10-things-you-must-do/
or
http://ur1.ca/dnn

- Make sure your IT staff follows up with their contribution, if any 
(don't "fire & forget")

If this sounds time consuming and involved, it is. Samba / Windows file 
sharing problems often happen in environments that are complex to 
reproduce and troubleshoot, I think we all understand that. Such moving 
targets require much more resources than others.

Failing that, there are commercial support options to do the same at a 
fraction of the cost, leading to know earlier if/when it can be fixed. 
Unfortunately as soon as I enter that territory it becomes slippery as I 
am a Canonical employee (at support!) and commercial services mean 
spending money, always a touchy subject when Ubuntu is only known as a 
community project, as opposed to the commercial product it also is. But 
you're talking about an organization with business concerns, so I feel 
the least you should do is know your options - even this late in your 
problem. Other commercial providers would probably contact you directly 
in other contexts and I am guessing you are open to that as the 
principal at your school.

I hope this sheds some light and may help others approach this kind of 
important issue in a helpful way - I don't pretend this post is the 
final solution to all cases, but I'm very interested in the outcome, 
whatever it may be and of course open to further discussion.

Cheers,

Fabian Rodriguez, Ubuntu Systems Senior Support Analyst
Canonical Global Support & Services
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FabianRodriguez

Mark Ellse wrote:
> [...]
> This bug turns Ubuntu from a very useful operating system,  which one 
> can recommend to ones friends and colleagues, to something that is 
> pretty much useless.
>
> I run a school. We have a number of Ubuntu workstations and LTSP 
> servers on the staff networks. All this was set up since Ubuntu had 
> for quite a while demonstrated its ability to browse Windows networks, 
> and therefore be up to the task of deployment in a Windows network.
>
> When Hardy was first released, it worked as well. But some update 
> prevented browing, and hence it has become useless.
>
> Since I, as principal of the school, have deployed Ubuntu, I look 
> stupid and incompetent. I can tough that out. But had I been simply 
> the IT manager, pushing for Ubuntu consideration, I'd have lost all 
> future credibiltiy.
>
> What interests me is that when I email Jono about the bug, he doesn't 
> know anything about it. So there are clearly a large number of people 
> who are using, and talking about, Ubuntu without having to experience 
> that important Ubuntu-Windows interface in which a large part of the 
> world lives.
>
> Is there any development about this bug? Or are most of those who are 
> involved in developing Ubuntu unaware of it, and its importance?
>
> And if there is anyone working on it, is there any anticipated 
> timescale for solution?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark Ellse
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/207072
>
>