Accessing a NAS device
Connecting to the Internet - Wired
Connecting to the Internet - Wireless
Linux Lite Shares from Windows
Network Shares
Setting the Date & Time
USB Broadband Modem
Windows Shares from Linux Lite
Connecting to the Internet - Wired
For the most part, you shouldn't have to configure anything in Network Connections if you are connected to your router with an ethernet cable. Your router is most likely already set up to give you an IP address automatically. So in this tutorial we will instead focus on connecting to your router with a static IP address.
Make sure Enable Networking has a tick beside it. The first step is to left click on the network tray icon and select Edit Connections. You may be asked for your password before you go to change any of your Network Connection settings.
A box will pop up with a number of tabs across the top, make sure to select the Wired tab.
Connecting to the Internet - Wireless
In the system tray (near the clock, bottom right hand side of your screen) if you have no connection at the moment you will see a diagonal broken line with a red cross next to it. This denotes that there is no connection currently. Left click on the icon, if your wireless is working, you should have a list of wireless networks in your area, select your network. If you cannot see any wireless networks at all, your wireless device driver may not be installed, or for example your wireless switch on your laptop is in the Off position. If after you have checked this there are still no wireless networks showing, go to Menu, Settings, Install Drivers and see if your wireless device is listed. If it is, install the driver for it and continue with this tutorial. (You will need to connect to the internet using a wired connection in order to download and install the wireless driver.)
A box will pop up asking for your wireless password. If you would like to view your password while you type it, tick the 'Show password' box to ensure that you have entered your wireless password correctly.
You will then receive a notification in the top right hand corner of your screen once you are connected.
After a successful connection, you should see a tray icon like the one shown below with 4 bars in total. The signal strength is displayed by the number of bars. The more bars in bold, the stronger the signal. In this example we are connected with 3 out of the 4 bars.
USB Broadband Modem
If you have the Huawei E220 then this should work out of the box. This is a very common modem and we encourage you to use this model if it is possible.
Right click on the Network Connections tray icon and select New Mobile Broadband connection. Configure your settings according to the details from your 3g service provider.
At this stage no other modems have been tested.
Accessing a NAS device
Many homes now use a NAS or Network Attached Storage device. In this tutorial we'll show you how to access all your media files, then show you how to play them across your network with VLC. When this set up is complete, you'll also be able to copy and paste files between your NAS and your pc just like you did in Windows or Mac.
First thing you need to do is find the IP address of your NAS. You may know this already or your NAS manual will show you how to find this. Once you have your NAS's IP address, open up your home folder and type in the following:
smb://192.168.0.5 where 192.168.0.5 is your NAS's IP address.
Put in the username of the NAS, in most cases it is admin, but again refer to your manual for the correct information. Put in the workgroup (Domain) name, and finally the password for your NAS. Place a dot in Remember forever if you want it to save your details.
You should now see all of your NAS folders.
Lets look inside the Movies folder for this device, as you can see I have a movie file in there called RevolutionOS.mp4
Before we can start playing media files across the network, we need to set up VLC so that it can access and play files remotely. In Linux Lite, click on Menu, Multimedia, VLC Media Player. With VLC open, click on Tools, Preferences.
In the window that pops up, in the bottom left click on All. Then on the left, expand Input / Codecs, Access modules, SMB. Then put in your NAS's username, password and finally the SMB domain (Workgroup). Click on Save to finish and close VLC.
Now that we've given VLC the network credentials it needs to access your NAS, we can browse and play our files.
Network Shares: Menu, System, Network Share Settings
Assuming you have already set up shares on your Windows computer, please read through the following guide. Accessing shares between Linux and Windows computers historically has been difficult, it doesn't always work out. In this tutorial we hope to make the process a little easier for you. First step, we need to set up your Linux Lite shares.
Create a folder in your home folder and place into it files that you want to share with your Windows computer.
Right click on your home folder, Create Folder. Now give your new folder a name, in this example we'll use the name 'share'.
Next we need to tell Windows who we are going to login as to access our Linux Lite shares. Open up a terminal and type:
sudo smbpasswd -a name
where name is your Linux Lite username. After that, you'll be asked to enter your Linux Lite password twice. Now, in the same terminal do:
sudo leafpad /etc/samba/smbusers
where you see:
<name> = “<name>”
replace name with your Linux Lite username in each of the brackets, eg.
<jerry> = “<jerry>”
Save and Close the file, and close the terminal. You will only ever need to do this part once.
Now click on Menu, System, Network Share Settings and follow very carefully the onscreen instructions. Do not miss any steps and take your time. A text editor will pop up with content similar to that of the example below.
#======================= Global Settings
==================================== [global] workgroup = WORKGROUP server string = Linux Lite Shares netbios name = lappy security = user encrypt passwords = true username map = /etc/samba/smbusers map to guest = bad user guest account = nobody dns proxy = no #======================= Share Definitions =================================== [linuxliteshare] path = /home/%U/share available = yes valid users = %U %G write list = %U browsable = yes public = no writable = yes guest ok = no read only = no printable = no locking = no strict locking = no |
There is no need to change any of the other settings. Doing so may cause the shares not to work. You only need to change:
WORKGROUP - must equal the workgroup name on
the Windows machine. netbios name is the name of the Linux Lite computer, eg. in a terminal where you see, jerry@lappy:~$ lappy is the netbios name. path = the path to your share folder on Linux Lite that we want Windows to see, ONLY change the last name eg. /home/%U/share share is the name of the folder on Linux Lite you are sharing in your home folder. %U is the same as your username, leave the %U as it is. Now change ONLY the word share to the name of the folder you created in the first step of this tutorial. |
Save and Close the file. Network services will be automatically restarted, you can now access your shares.
TIP: Keep pressing F5 in the share folder, sometimes it takes a few seconds for the shares to appear.
If at any stage you want to add more share folders, you can simply add more blocks like in the example below:
#======================= Global Settings
==================================== [global] workgroup = WORKGROUP server string = Linux Lite Shares netbios name = lappy security = user encrypt passwords = true username map = /etc/samba/smbusers map to guest = bad user guest account = nobody dns proxy = no #======================= Share Definitions =================================== [linuxliteshare] path = /home/%U/share available = yes valid users = %U %G write list = %U browsable = yes public = no writable = yes guest ok = no read only = no printable = no locking = no strict locking = no [linuxliteshareVideos] path = /home/%U/Videos available = yes valid users = %U %G write list = %U browsable = yes public = no writable = yes guest ok = no read only = no printable = no locking = no strict locking = no [linuxliteshareDownloads] path = /home/%U/Downloads available = yes valid users = %U %G write list = %U browsable = yes public = no writable = yes guest ok = no read only = no printable = no locking = no strict locking = no |
Accessing your Linux Lite Shares from Windows
Go to your Windows machine, in this example we'll use Windows XP.
Click on Start, Run and type in the netbios name of your Linux Lite computer preceded by 2 backslashes:
eg. \\lappy
A username and password dialogue box will pop up, enter in the user and password we created earlier.
And here we see our Linux Lite computer share folder:
All that's left to do is to double click on the Linux Lite share and we will be inside the share folder. Now you can copy and paste files to your Linux Lite computer.
Accessing your Windows Shares from Linux Lite
Go to your Windows machine and find the ip address. To do this, open a command prompt and type in: ipconfig.
Usually the results at the top has your ip address listed. In the above example, the ip address is: 192.168.0.8 Make a note of this ip address.
Now go back to your Linux Lite computer, and open your home folder.
NOTE: If by the end of this Shares tutorial you are still not seeing any shares, try restarting both machines. Also note that sometimes it can take a while before the shares appear.
In the address bar, type in: smb://ipaddressofwindowspc where ipaddressofwindowspc is the actual numbered ip address of your Windows computer.
If everything went to plan, you should now be prompted for your Windows username, domain or workgroup and your Windows password.
Windows username - Windows workgroup name - Windows password
Now you can copy and paste files to your Windows computer.
NOTE: If the ip address method does not work eg. smb://192.168.0.8 try smb://linuxlite where linuxlite is your netbios name.
NOTE: If you are still not having any luck with either method, try NitroShare, a cross-platform network sharing application for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can view a video tutorial on it here. Another method you could consider is setting up an FTP server on your Windows computer and connecting to it with Filezilla, available from Menu, System, Install/Remove Software.
Setting the Date & Time
Go to Menu, Settings, Date & Time and enter your password when asked.
On the Date and Time tab you can set the date, hours, minutes and seconds. Alternatively you can choose to sync with a server on the internet. Click on OK to finish.
On the Time Zone tab, click on your city or region on the map shown. You can click on the zoom slider on the left hand side to to more accurately select your location. To finish click on OK.