SMB shares and KDE

[Guest]

Hey boys n girls.

I've got a problem that seems pretty usual. But since i'am comming from gnome (ubuntu), i've been accustomed to the automounting of smb shares when i open them.
But that does not happen when i use KDE (Dolphin), this results in a file transer when i try to play a movie view a file and so on. The file transfer is copying the file to my tmp folder.


Is there a way of doing the same thing with kubuntu?

[rms]

Hey boys n girls.

I've got a problem that seems pretty usual. But since i'am comming from gnome (ubuntu), i've been accustomed to the automounting of smb shares when i open them.
But that does not happen when i use KDE (Dolphin), this results in a file transer when i try to play a movie view a file and so on. The file transfer is copying the file to my tmp folder.


Is there a way of doing the same thing with kubuntu?

What type of video is it? Check if it is associated to play with your favourite player. I click on a flv (associated with VLC) file on windows machine and it plays instead of downloading.



Edit: There are additional reasons - I can't play remote videos with Gnome player either. You may want to install or use VLC? See in this thread http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=88565

[james147]

What video player are you using? If you aren't already I suggest trying dragon-player or kaffeine. For vlc see http://www.jfdesignnet.com/?p=1281 on how to get it to stream.

[vw72]

I have read, but have not tried this, that if you create a mount point in your /etc/fstab to the share then it will work for you without copying it first to your local drive. Gnome uses gvs to handle the automatic mounting of shares, which KDE does not. Evidently, in this case, Gnome does it better, or at least KDE doesn't distinguish between you wanting to copy it from the internet or the local file server. That's what I've read, anyway.

[james147]

I have read, but have not tried this, that if you create a mount point in your /etc/fstab to the share then it will work for you without copying it first to your local drive. Gnome uses gvs to handle the automatic mounting of shares, which KDE does not. Evidently, in this case, Gnome does it better, or at least KDE doesn't distinguish between you wanting to copy it from the internet or the local file server. That's what I've read, anyway.

Actually, kde doesn't need to mount the share as it can stream remote files to kio aware applications. The problem is that kde doesn't think that the preferred application can handle this and so falls back to downloading the file first.

Manually mounting the samba shares is a valid workaround, but depending on the chosen application it is probably possible to stream directly to the player. I know dragon-player, kaffeine and vlc are all capable of this and I regularly use them to stream media from a samba share without mounting it.

[rms]

I know dragon-player, kaffeine and vlc are all capable of this and I regularly use them to stream media from a samba share without mounting it.

Hi James,
Actually, I couldn't make Dragon player to play even though it has a %U in command string

[james147]

Hi James,
Actually, I couldn't make Dragon player to play even though it has a %U in command string

Does it play them locally? Do you have the right codecs installed?

[SteveRiley]

Try installing smb4k. I've been using it for a while and can report that it works well. It accomplishes the same thing that GVFS does in GNOME.

A few suggestions for configuration:

• Shares page: Set Interval between checks to 300000 ms. Smb4K likes to run your CPU a bit, this change reduces the load.
• Samba page, Mounting tab: Set file and directory masks to 0777. Deselect Do permissions checks (*), select Do not cache inode data and Do not use locking
• Super User page: Select both options

Browse for servers and shares in the main window. When you click a share, it will mount under ~/smb4k/server-name/share-name. Now you can stream files as expected without having to make local copies.

(*) Linux kernel 3.3 and above have switched the default authentication method from NTLM to NTLMv2. This is generally a good thing, but will break some configs. I just discovered this last night. Smb4K's permission checking understands only the old NTLM. Disabling this setting allows Smb4K to work with NTLMv2.

[rms]

Does it play them locally? Do you have the right codecs installed?

Yes, all is in place, it plays locally. I just tried half a dozen other players and OP is right - all try to download prior to playback. Not that I have reasons to be dissatisfied with VLC but I think, I'll try what Steve recommended.

[oshunluvr]

I must have done something wrong as installing smb4k has done nothing to change this behavior (caching to tmp rather than streaming video) on my box.

The main issue for streaming using vlc seems to be associating the target files. If the video is not associated with vlc, it caches it to tmp. If it is associated, it streams. It's also helpful if you increase the vlc cache size if your network is on the slower side (aka wireless). This causes a slight delay at startup but prevents pauses during play.

[SteveRiley]

I must have done something wrong as installing smb4k has done nothing to change this behavior (caching to tmp rather than streaming video) on my box.

Hm... for me, Smb4K enabled streaming capability regardless of what player I use. Mind sharing screenshots of your Smb4K config?

[rms]

I must have done something wrong as installing smb4k has done nothing to change this behavior (caching to tmp rather than streaming video) on my box.

The trick seems to be that shared directory should be mounted check "Mounted Shares" tab. Indeed any player streams a video!

Thank you Steve!!! +2

[oshunluvr]

Hm... for me, Smb4K enabled streaming capability regardless of what player I use. Mind sharing screenshots of your Smb4K config?

I had never installed it (I rarely use samba) so I used your suggested settings. I can still provide the screenshots if needed.

I hope I made it clear though: As long as vlc is associated with the target file, it streams - regardless of smb4k or not. The cacheing behavior occurs when vlc is not associated with the file type - then it caches regardless of smb4k. I believe it has to do with kio handling of network files.

In any case, for me the only instance of using samba is to watch a recording from my DVR on my PC. I am working on getting NFS working on the DVR so it will be moot for me in the next week or two (hopefully).

The main point I wanted to add to this thread is for vlc users to associate filetypes they wish to stream with vlc.

[Guest]

I use gvfs to mount the smb shares, which is the method nautilus uses. Then, everything streams, not just video. The only problem I've had is proper integration with dolphin, so I don't have to mount it separately or at startup. KIO has been nothing but broken for me, so this seems to be the best method I've found.

[rms]

only problem I've had is proper integration with dolphin, so I don't have to mount it separately or at startup. KIO has been nothing but broken for me, so this seems to be the best method I've found.

Yes, when I forget to dismount the shared resource, shutdown takes ages to complete.