File and Folder Share in Ubuntu Hardy…

I was trying to share my files and folders over the network using Samba, which is what Ubuntu uses, and was getting the following message,

ubuntu ‘net usershare’ returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error Permission denied

so here is what I did to make it work.

1. Open a Terminal and type the following in

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

What this will do is open the configuration file for Samba with “Root” privileges which means we can edit it.

2. Find the section called “Global Settings”, which for me was the first section, and paste the following line at the end of the section,

usershare owner only = False

Save the file and close it. Now your sharing should work. If not you may need to log out and log back in or reboot.

Also make sure that your User has the permissions to share files and folders over the network.
To make sure of this go to System > Administration > Users and Groups. Then click the “Unlock” button and enter your password. Click on your user and then on Properties and then go to the User Privileges tab and make sure that “Share files with the local network” is ticked.

Firefox, Flash and Ubuntu Hardy…

As you know not too long ago I upgraded my machines to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). However just a couple days ago I reverted back to Ubuntu 8.04 on my ThinkPad due to experiencing Kernel Panics and sound distortion. I did attempt to find the cause for the Kernel Panics, and I did find that I was not the only one experiencing this with Intrepid, but the solution was no where in sight.

Hardy was back up and running with all my programs (30+) and all my mail and firefox backups in about 2 hours. Things were already better without the Kernel Panics. There was one thing though which I noticed pretty much right away which was causing me trouble in Hardy. It seemed that when I would have Firefox open and was viewing Flash video content (ie. YouTube) that my sound ont he rest of the system would no longer work. For example if I had a Flash video playing in Firefox and I also opened up a music player like Exaile or Banshee and tried to play an audio file it would not play – also Pidgin sounds would no longer work.

I think I found the solution and it was remarkably simple. All I did was install a package called “libflashsupport”. You can do this via the Synaptic Package Manager or with the Terminal. In the terminal it is a simple command of:

sudo apt-get install libflashsupport

After installing the package you should close and reopen Firefox. Then play a Flash video and try to play music through your media player at the same time.