I just installed Ubuntu on an old machine and have been trying to get it to connect to a Windows computer to play mp3 files from it. I have established the networked shares and am able to browse the Windows filesystem on the Linux machine.

I have tried playing files from the Windows machine wtih Rhythmbox and Totem, and I have also tried installing XMMS with no success. I have an extensive library and would prefer to not have to copy the entire set of mp3s to my Linux machine in order to listen to music there.

When I right-click on one of these mp3 files and view its properties, I see

smb://windows_machine/share/song_name.mp3

So I am thinking that the smb: protocol is not understood by the audio players I have tried.

I looked for a samba mountpoint in my filesystem, thinking that maybe I could connect to my mp3s by using the mounted network share instead of the smb: protocol, but I was unable to find the mountpoint. Do mountpoints even exist in Ubuntu for this kind of thing?

Otherwise, can you recommend a good audio player that will allow me to play these kind of files? Or is there another solution?

Thanks.

Just set this up on mine to see what the problem could be since I have seen this question before many times. Copied over an mp3 to the win2000 box and opened it under xmms and totem and played fine in both.

This is the way I did it and not sure if you did it this way.
I use the mount command with smbfs as the filesystem type and mount it to directory /mnt/lcomp15_ddrive.
mount -t smbfs -o username=<use_windows_username_here> //lcomp15/DDRIVE /mnt/lcomp15_ddrive

I created a directory in /mnt called /mnt/lcomp15_ddrive.
Then have the entire D drive on the windows 2000 box open to all.
Use the mount command above and goto /mnt/lcomp15_ddrive and played an mp3 there.

edit:
Guessing from the info above you are using KDE as the gui. I run the command in konquorer
smb://lcomp15/ddrive, entered username and password, and right clicked on the mp3 and selected xmms to play it. Odd thing it copied the mp3 first to a tmp location of some kind and once downloaded it played in xmms fine. Would not work for totem. It downloaded it again but did not play. Ended up locking totem player up. Again both work fine when mounted with the mount command.
edit:

See if this helps.
Brian1

I am using Ubuntu's "Places -> Network Servers" option to browse the local Windows network to find the files I am looking for.

When I tried the command you suggested I received this error:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //martian/music,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

I am using Gnome, not KDE.

I'm not getting the same behavior you are describing. XMMS will allow me to copy the files into a playlist. I can queue them up to be played, but once I hit "play" the queue disappears and no music has been played.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks.
Chris

Can't help with gnome since I don't use it much. As for the mount command issue sounds like maybe smbfs is not installed. Run the mount command again and then run the command ' dmesg | tail ' to see if it mentions why.

Brian1