[Solved]Media playback from network drive

[l2c]

Hi!
I installed Kubuntu today, on an old laptop, and I'm trying to get it to work as well (or better than) the old XP install it had before.
I'm having issues with media files that's on our NAS though. I think it's samba shared. I really have very little knowledge with such :|
I can find the NAS and if I right-click video files on it and open them with VLC, they play, with the url smb://nasname/path/file. However, if I open VLC and choose open, it just says "You can only select local files". If every file has to be right clicked in the file manager, it's gonna be well cumbersome :<

I did read something about mounting the network drive, that that would help, but I tried that, with the limited skills I have, and it said only root could do that.
How do I mount as root? I only have the one user :<
Any tips or full on step by step guides would be appreciated

Oh, and also, windows that aren't maximized look odd. The top and bottom strip is displaced to the right, so that the titlebar and bottom shadow sticks out on the right side.
When maximized, the titlebar is stretched vertically, so I only see half of the text, and it's stretched. Is it just cause the laptop is old, or? It's a Dell from ca 2004

[sithlord48]

Re: Media playback from network drive

you need to mount the file system if using samba look in to smbfs if you can use NFS i suggest you set that up instead.

for your window borders, turn off desktop effects. your video card does not like them . (guessing nvidia FX type card. )

[l2c]

Re: Media playback from network drive

I disabled OpenGL rendering or something like that, fixed the gfx problems.

For the rest. I don't know what NFS is, but I barely managed to set up the NAS as it is, in a network with it, 2 win7s and a winXP
I'll google smbfs tomorrow, getting late here ^^

[Guest]

Re: Media playback from network drive

Files that run with Windows media player drive us all nuts. There is a whole set of plug ins that make those files work.

Those types of files are falling out of favour a more streamers are going to flash player

I've wound up spending entire evenings doing trial and error.

It they play but not in your browser, the problem is that you need a Firefox plug in for Fire fox.

[sithlord48]

Re: Media playback from network drive

your problem is that you have to mount the file system else you will have to download the data to your machine first. two ways to do this are to use 'smbfs' or to use 'nfs' (if your nas box supports that).

smbfs will allow you to mount a samba share , so it acts as if its a local file.
nfs is another kind of file sharing you can set up.

[l2c]

Re: Media playback from network drive

Arite. So after much digging and reading and failing, I've got a mount command in fstab. And I even have an empty line on the bottom (might seem obvious if you know linux, I was _confused_)

But now, when I log on/start up, and try to access it, there's just an error message in Dolphin (?) saying "mount: only root can mount //box/share on home/user/folder" (edited to remove actual names).
Is there anything I should add before the line in fstab? Maybe a switch or something? Or...?
Kinda annoying that you need to be root to edit fstab, but then you can't run the contents later, cause you're not root :<

/edit: fstab line in case that helps, again edited to remove actual names/ip

//ip/PUBLIC /home/user/folder cifs guest,_netdev 0 0

/edit2: I tried mounting it as root in console (sudo -i, nothing else works ).
Got:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ip/PUBLIC,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
(for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might
need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program)
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so



/edit3: Would this be easier with NFS? I'm using an Xtreamer e-TRAYz that has CIFS activated, but I can activate NFS as well (not that I understand much of that either).

[sithlord48]

Re: Media playback from network drive

if you can do both then i would use nfs for your linux boxes and maybe your win7 machine too , it tends to work better then samba anyway.

[ShapeShifter]

Re: Media playback from network drive

If i recall corectly the problem came with kubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 when xinbe was switched with gstreamer.

Xine enabled you to play video over samba shares without the need to mount them

To get xine working in 10.10 (I have not tried this is 11.04 or 11.10)
Install it via package manager then goto system -> mutlimedia - > Phonon -> THen Backend and set xine to the top

Or something like that. However mounting the samba shares work fine for me and gstreamer.

Here is a copy of my /etc/fstab for a ntfs samba share {samba must be installed}

//192.168.20.150/Volume_1/ /media/fileserver cifs iocharset=utf8,username=username,password=1,uid=1000 0 0

//192.168.20.150 is my server
Vulume 1 is my share name
/media/fileserver is my directory for mounting the network share
change username and password to yours if there is no username and pass just leave as is


I hope this helps someone

Regards

[sithlord48]

Re: Media playback from network drive

If i recall corectly the problem came with kubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 when xinbe was switched with gstreamer.

Xine enabled you to play video over samba shares without the need to mount them

those are sound backends, they should have nothing to do with streaming from samba shares. but im happy to see that you have mounted your shares.

[ShapeShifter]

Re: Media playback from network drive

Well then its not the sound but xine allowed the direct playback via network.

[l2c]

Re: Media playback from network drive

I found a solution!
Not sure what I did wrong, but anyways.
Found this great guide here, that fixed me right up. Had to install a couple of those things, like smbfs, probably one the issues I suppose

Works like a charm so far, can open files right from VLC and everything.
Thanks alot for the help tho, not sure how much more I understand now, but atleast I know a little more ;p