smb

In the cross-platform environment of our university, at least three different OS connect to the smb shared group directories. Apparently Macs are able to save files with characters that are not allowed on other platforms and which cannot be easily deleted. Recently we had several files which ended with a '.' (dot) or a ' ' (space), and we were not able to remove them via the GUI. In Windows 7, I managed via the command line with:
delete "file." or
delete "file "

Mount Samba shares
Apparently it is very easy to connectfrom within Nautilus to Windows computers (or rather to computers running smb services). The only thing you have to do is to type smb:/// into the URL bar and the network is browsed for available domains, workgroups and services. However when one tries to open some files (e.g. some image) there often appears the error message that those files cannot be accessed via samba.

If your samba is unreliable, there can be a number of reasons. I got the impression that YAST overwrites configuration data you have manually edited (e.g. in the password and user files) when you try to change settings via the YAST samba setup procedure. Here follows a checklist in case samba is again not responding or not visible in the network neighborhood. It could be that the unreliability is due to a PDC shutting down. Maybe I should make my Linux the PDC as it is always running.