Kaffeine and playing files from off the local network

[John Woodhouse]

I'm a bit happier now having torn more hair out. I've switched to using mount.cifs for the connection to the nas. Problem though on suse 11.4 it has been crippled and a user needs root password to enter their nas password. Crazy. Fixed by replacing it with the version from 11.2. Not sure how widespread this problem is. Few details in case others have problems with dolphin's microsoft network connections. CIFS is effectively a kernel provided disk format type as per ext3 etc. Mount.cifs is a helper. It doesn't need samba which also has the problems I have experienced.

I suid mount.cifs and to gain some security set the owner group to nas. This means that only specified users can use it and that they have to have the password to actually access the nas. Best place for mount.cifs syntax is the samba site. ;-) A bash/kde login script is still to do but I now do have a mount that works.

End result is all apps I have tried work as they would be expected to work on the local drive even Kaffeine. No downloading before loading either. Also no need to use kde autoloader which results in 10 secs + of dead desktop following log in as it searches for servers and mounts them.

This entire area every where seems to have been worked on by india rubber man sticking patches all over the place to fix supposed leaks. Don't know if devs read anything on here or take any notice but if kde really wants to allow easy connection to a microsoft network drive they should pick up mount.cifs and put a k in front of it. Maybe security could do with being a touch better than what I have achieved which in real terms is pretty good. In principle a user could try and mount any cifs set up on the network - if they know the correct access password. Only one problem found. Repeated mounts continue to make connections to the same place. Still works but umount.cifs seem strange as it takes just as many to unmount it. Have to laugh. I have bug listed that but all bugs seem to go bottom priority. Also bugged the kde sticking plasters in the same area - same there I suspect. Haven't bothered bug listing samba problems. It does work in various fashions
 for some but not on my straight repo installation.

All interesting really as cifs seems to have been implemented in the kernel for use on diskless work stations and things like nas's. Truly transparent network file access.

John

--- On Sat, 28/5/11, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:

> From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net>
> Subject: [kde] Re: Kaffeine and playing files from off the local network
> To: kde at mail.kde.org
> Date: Saturday, 28 May, 2011, 12:56
> John Woodhouse posted on Sat, 28 May
> 2011 02:26:40 -0700 as excerpted:
> 
> > Disappointed to too weak a word but as mentioned
> feelings like that in
> > my case do not just relate to kde but other aspects of
> linux as well. I
> > have always hoped that linux plus kde would become one
> of the major
> > installations alongside mac and windoze. It has lead
> the way in some
> > respects in the past but now I feel it is falling
> behind and in some
> > areas, not kde, is showing strong signs of not
> evolving at all where as
> > windoze is.
> 
> It has seemed, lately, as if people are giving up on the
> "power-user" 
> Linux desktop.  Of course Linux in the form of Android
> is going great guns 
> in mobiles, and Linux continues to be strong in servers and
> seriously 
> dominates the HPC/supercomputer market.  And there's
> still the Ubuntus and 
> Fedora/Gnomes of the world going for the "hide the
> controls, here come the 
> l-users, and we'd not want them to hurt themselves!"
> desktop segment.  But 
> for those not afraid of a good configuration dialog... kde
> may have its 
> problems, but perhaps unfortunately, at least at the
> full-feature end, it 
> remains the only really viable choice.
> 
> Fortunately for me, I've always tended to be a bleeding
> edge beta kind of 
> user (which was what so frustrated me when kde was saying
> 4.2 and 4.3 were 
> ready for normal users, when they were giving even this
> seriously leading 
> edge beta guy problems that would have had him putting it
> off a few more 
> versions... if kde wasn't at the same time dropping support
> for the truly 
> mature and stable 3.x, forcing the issue, at the same time
> -- they were 
> calling a clear alpha, not even beta quality, ready for
> normal use, while 
> at the same time pulling the rug out from the real stable
> version and its 
> users!), so I'm I'm not too terribly uncomfortable with all
> this, and have 
> bisected, bug reported, and applied patches, to prove
> it.  So unless the 
> trend of the last couple releases continues downward, I'm
> used to having 
> to work around and bisect/bug-report/apply-patches, no big
> deal, and I'll 
> be fine.  But it was /nice/ to be finally able to
> honestly recommend the 
> later 4.5 series to other more normal users, and I *MISS*
> the ability to 
> be able to do so! =:^(
> 
> The second most viable alternative, and it's a way down the
> list for me 
> but honestly I'd be looking at it if I hadn't already
> invested the time in 
> switching to kde4, would have to be to "go light", with
> enlightenment or 
> lxde or some such.  From what I've read, enlightenment
> at least is quite 
> configurable, tho of course far less full-featured and much
> more bare-
> bones than the full ecosystem that kde tends to provide.
> 
> > I also assume that people do of course appreciate that
> home networks and
> > even nas's are increasingly popular even if they do
> not use them. These
> > are also fundamental to enterprise level use.
> 
> Certainly so.  I just found your statement that kde
> was only fit for a toy 
> based on that alone... overly broad on overly narrow. 
> Widen the LAN/NAS 
> case to the entire scope of kde and its bugs and
> regressions, and I 
> believe the case is defensible, or conversely,
> qualify/narrow-down the 
> "toy" claim with either a "for me" or even a "for heavily
> network 
> dependent users", and I can't argue with it either. 
> It was just the broad-
> on-narrow case that you happened to use, that I had
> problems with.
> 
> -- 
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML
> msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master." 
> Richard Stallman
> 
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