Can't see Windows Network PCs from Mint 19

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John Gray
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Joined: 24 Jan 2010, 08:33
Location: A cathedral city in England

Can't see Windows Network PCs from Mint 19

Post by John Gray »

Has anyone inserted one or more Linux PCs (in my case Mint 19 Cinnamon) into a standard Windows LAN, and been able to see the Windows PCs from a Mint PC?

Any Windows PC can see any other, and also successfully ping the Mint PC by name and IP address.

The Mint PC is in the same workgroup, and gets its IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS server addresses successfully from the router.

I have tried everything I can think of (and Googled!) but can't get the Mint PC to ping any of the Windows PCs by name or by IP address. I have installed Samba and edited smb.conf to include/change several suggested lines, rebooting every time.

Consequently I cannot accomplish my goals:
* make the Mint PC visible
* make the Mint PC able to see Windows shares (the Windows PCs can see but not process the Mint PC share I created)
* print from the Mint PC to a Windows PC which has a USB-attached printer

Has anyone been through this saga, successfully?
John Gray

Venison is quiet deer, and quite dear.

PJ_in_FL
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Posts: 1090
Joined: 21 Jan 2011, 16:51
Location: Florida

Re: Can't see Windows Network PCs from Mint 19

Post by PJ_in_FL »

Have you posted on the Mint IRC? There should be a link built in.

I had a "few" problems adding a Mint OS to SO's computer after a Win 10 drive-by download made her laptop essentially unusable, and the help I received was very good advice from the people in the chatroom.

I'm able to move files to her public folders from a Win 7 computer on the same home network. If you have specific configuration questions I'll try to answer the best I can.
PJ in (usually sunny) FL

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John Gray
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Posts: 5401
Joined: 24 Jan 2010, 08:33
Location: A cathedral city in England

Re: Can't see Windows Network PCs from Mint 19

Post by John Gray »

Further work indicates that some times I can see the Windows Network of PCs (with their firewalls turned off) from Mint 18.3 Cinnamon in Nemo, but a reboot can make the network fail to appear again. Occasionally it returns while the PC is on, but often not.

With Mint 19 Cinnamon, I have never seen the Windows Network.

And they say that networking on Windows is difficult, compared with Linux!

I shall have to resort to the Linux Mint forums....
John Gray

Venison is quiet deer, and quite dear.