smbclient -L - machine gives you a list of all shares on a particular machine.

smbclient file://testmachine/share allows you to access the shared folder 'share'

on a computer called 'testmachine'.

smbmount file://testmachine/share /mnt mounts a share called 'share' from the

testmachine computer on a directory called mnt.

If you have smbclient installed on a Windows-based machine, you can use the

same commands on that machine too.

Linux in your neighbourhood

Till now, you have seen how your Windows machine can access Linux computers.

Even Linux computers can access shares on a Windows PC in an easy way using

utilities such as Linneighborhood or XSM Browser. Linneighborhood is a clone

of the Windows-based Network Neighborhood and allows users to browse through

Windows-based networks. You can mount (map as in Windows) the different Windows

shares.

XSMBrowser is another utility for viewing a Windows machine and has an interface

similar to that of Netscape Navigator. The installation of XSMBrowser can be

done using the Red Hat binaries or by compiling the source.

Lin-Win talk

As you can see, getting Linux and Windows to talk to each other isn't difficult

at all. There are other methods also to get Linux connect to Windows clients,

but by far what we have outlined here are the simplest methods. And considering

the number of graphical utilities that are available for this task, you needn't

even bother with any command line parameters. We just had a basic look at sharing

files using Samba, but there are many more alternatives such as the Andrew File

System (AFS). Better interfaces are the order of the day, and the Windows-Linux

network may soon seem an integrated whole.