So I have things working for me at this point. I was never able to get Samba worling properly. My initial issue was not having a / at the end of my folder path in the Samba config file. After fixing that issue I was able to see the shared folder but was prompted to log in each time, which was an issue in my use case. I ended up abandoning Samba and setting up Jellyfin which has been a much smoother experience, but also is providing many more features. So, if you are looking to share media on your local network, my recommendation would be Jellyfin!

Thank you so much to everyone that commented and helped me a long. I hope I get to return the favor in some way.

Hello, I’ve been working towards fully migrating to linux, but this is one issue I’m having a hard time with. I have a couple of folders on a storage drive that I share on my local network to stream movies and TV, but I can’t figure out how to do it in my Linux install. I’m running Linux Mint 22, have installed Samba, and have tried a few different walkthroughs with no success. Can anyone point me in the right direction to get this set up?

Thanks for your time!

  • M4st3rSh0e@lemmy.world
    14·
    2 days ago

    Just ran into this the other night myself. Turns out I didn’t have the path the correct way, cause samba is picky. My original config was set up with the path = /home/user/Public but I had to change it to path = /home/user/Public/ You’re path in your reply looks like it’s missing that / at the end. After you update, don’t forget to restart the service.

    • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipOP
      6·
      2 days ago

      Well that made it show up thankfully, but it’s asking me to log in. Any idea how to handle that? I don’t want it to ask at all so family members have ready access.

  • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    i know i will be like a meme of “answers completely different question”, but jellyfin does this natively, so if you strictly need this for movies/media, maybe try it out?

    • dil@lemmy.zip
      4·
      2 days ago

      Yeah use some sort of selfhosted mediashare, imo runtipis the easiest way to get it up and running, becuase im lazy and it has a one click installer, auto uodates, backups, etc.

    • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipOP
      3·
      2 days ago

      All I’m trying to do is play videos on Xbox/Roku, so whatever makes that happen easily is fine with me for now. I would like to build a stand alone media pc/NAS later but for now just want to keep hosting it on my pc.

          • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            I meant jellyfin on xbox, they seem to have some version of it. If it works, then you are kinda golden, install jellyfin on pc, add a folder with movies as a library, and install clients where you need them, and it would work (if your ip on home network is fixed that is, would need some router fixing if not, cause it talks by ip:port to server (your pc)). Think jellyfin fixed sketchiest issues with transcoding, so it kinda not that involved on server side

            • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipOP
              3·
              1 day ago

              This is actually what I did. I never could get Samba working, so I setup Jellyfin and it’s been a breeze ever since. What an amazing piece of software! I just wanted to access my files, but having them categorized with images, cast and crew, ratings, and even recommended is just fantastic. The Xbox app works fine but it’s basically just a web wrapper, and the cursor never goes away which is mildly annoying, but it’s still a way better experience than the VLC Xbox app.

              Thanks for the help!

  • floo@retrolemmy.comEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    It would be helpful to know what you’ve already tried and what went wrong. The more info the better.

    • moncharleskey@lemmy.zipOP
      3·
      2 days ago

      Well I tried the UI approach of right clicking the folder and going to share options, which is when I was prompted to install Samba, but there is warning that states “The permission for <folder> prevent othersl users from accessing this share”. I did some digging on that error, and everything I came across basically said that wouldn’t work. My next attempt was modifying the Samba config file, I added

      [FolderName]

      path = (file directory path I see in properties, /media/username/lettersandnumbersfordrive?/FolderName)

      browseable = yes

      read only = yes

      guest ok = yes

      create mask =0775

      As instructed by a tutorial I found. When running testpram I don’t get any errors, but I’m not seeing the folder in VLC like I do when sharing from Win10. That’s as far as I have gotten. If there’s anything else that I can provide please let me know, and on that note, the drive I’m sharing from is NTFS if that has any impact.

      Thanks again!

    • nfms@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      You might have answered the OP question, and a long standing mine as well. Gonna check this up on my setup