Posted inInformation Technology

Manjaro KDE and NAS

seasoned_geek by seasoned_geek
Network drives

You know, I really hate updates.

What I really hate is how the Linux world thinks a major (&)(&*ing change should go in a minor update. Not long ago I wrote this post on getting Manjaro to work with NAS and all was beautiful. Manjaro worked much like other mainstream Linux distros when it came to NAS.

Well we can’t have that!

One of the more annoying things about Manjaro KDE and NAS is the network discovery. Actually it is the support/development staff. One person fixes it so it works very main stream. Then someone else changes it back to an expert friendly hack.

If your one and only target market is a corporate desktop, I guess I can understand this. Department IT people will email you the server name(s) you have access to and tell you the credentials you should use. There could be thousands of network shares in a sizeable corporation.

You shouldn’t be seeking out regular users if you are really writing for the corporate market. First go read the post I linked to. It will provide you some frame of reference for this rant.

Fedora 33

Pictures will help explain my current rant.

Fedora 33 – Other Locations
Fedora 33 – WORKGROUP
Fedora 33 – Network sources

As you can see with Fedora 33, finding the NAS you want to use is a nice graphical progression. That assumes you have applied this hack so your Buffalo devices show up. You apply that same hack to Ubuntu for a more direct approach.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Ubuntu – Other Locations

Manjaro 20.2.1

With Manjaro (KDE at least, haven’t tried others) you have to click on Network, then double click “Add Network Folder.”

Manjaro KDE – Network
You need to select Execute
Select Windows network drive
Now you have to enter all of the information

I think you are starting to see the “expert friendly” portion of this. Most mere mortal users won’t know how to find this information.

Various lookup commands part 1
various lookup commands part 2
Various lookup commands part 3

I’m sure there are hundreds of other ways. I’m also certain most GUI users aren’t going to did deep enough to find such obscure commands. They are just going to install Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.

Note, you still have to identify which shares are on the server.

show shares for server

If you have NAS on your network that supports the new standard, but your routers and some of your other NAS don’t support the SMB2 protocol this is what you have to do. None of your WORKGROUP drives will show up in the GUI because the router hosting your WORKGROUP doesn’t directly support the newer protocol.

Yes, we now have to apply the hack previously applied to Ubuntu and Fedora. It looks a little different here though.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
smb.conf

Change the “client min protocol” line from SMB2 to NT1. Once you save that, if you are using the smbclient command in a terminal, you don’t even have to reboot. You do have to reboot so the GUI notices the change.

Once you reboot things will seem a bit more normal.

You can now see WORKGROUP in “Shared Folders”
All is right with the world

I know one thing for certain; not going to upgrade my router until my Buffalo NAS dies.

Roland Hughes started his IT career in the early 1980s. He quickly became a consultant and president of Logikal Solutions, a software consulting firm specializing in OpenVMS application and C++/Qt touchscreen/embedded Linux development. Early in his career he became involved in what is now called cross platform development. Given the dearth of useful books on the subject he ventured into the world of professional author in 1995 writing the first of the "Zinc It!" book series for John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.

A decade later he released a massive (nearly 800 pages) tome "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" which tried to encapsulate the essential skills gained over what was nearly a 20 year career at that point. From there "The Minimum You Need to Know" book series was born.

Three years later he wrote his first novel "Infinite Exposure" which got much notice from people involved in the banking and financial security worlds. Some of the attacks predicted in that book have since come to pass. While it was not originally intended to be a trilogy, it became the first book of "The Earth That Was" trilogy:
Infinite Exposure
Lesedi - The Greatest Lie Ever Told
John Smith - Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars

When he is not consulting Roland Hughes posts about technology and sometimes politics on his blog. He also has regularly scheduled Sunday posts appearing on the Interesting Authors blog.