Accessing a Network Fileserver through applications

[Kim Briggs]

Hi List,

I have recently installed the "hoary hedgehog" version of Ubuntu (5.0x) and 
am really impressed with the distribution and would like to make it my 
everyday desktop OS. I am having a problem, however, accessing files that 
are on a home-network server after I have opened an application. When I used 
a SuSE distribution and opened similar applications (Open Office, a text 
editor, e.g.) there is a side bar "wrapper" thing that has a few major 
places to start from, including "network". I really would like to know if I 
can get that functionality using the Ubuntu distribution.

Network (not sure what's relevant):
--A dsl connection to a Linksys router (trusted network, not-sesitive data).
--Fixed IPs.
--File Server is SuSE 9.2 Pro, NIS Server, NFS Server, Samba Server.
--A couple of windows machines (need samba).
--Ubuntu linux 5.04 on IBM Netvista (P4 256MB)..

What I have done:
--Installed Ubuntu from the Hoary Hedgehog CD.
--Noticed that network browsing "just worked" right away, meaning I can go 
to Places-->Network Servers and open documents. This is great.
--Tried to cheat and created shortcuts to these network places into my home 
directory. The applications tell me they are "not a folder".
--Tried to install NIS and NFS packages to get the clients, but got caught 
up on the NIS "you haven't finished yet" part of it.
--Noticed that both NIS and NFS services statuses have question marks 
instead of red or green circles in the services admin tool.
--Found out I could do "sudo mount remote_server_ip:/remote_home/user/folder 
/local_home/my/folder" and get the functionality I wanted. Tried to put this 
in .bashrc file but get the "you must be root" error for each line.

Specific Questions:
--I don't think I know enough about networking to ask the right technical 
question. 
--I would like to hear constructive comments on what I've done.
--I'd like to hear from anybody who has an idea of how I can best make use 
of the fileserver I have (which I'm very happy with and don't want to 
change) when I'm using desktop applications in gnome.

thanks for reading,
KB
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