I'm trying to create a link to a shared folder on a LAN Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop from another Ubuntu 12.04 machine.
I've got access to copy/paste/delete but can't creat a link.

I've googled and tried a million things with always the same answer: "The target doesn't support symbolic links."

I've got three ubuntu machines on a client's office because it's an open source SO, and it's not able to do such a simple task. FFS.

I like linux, but couldn't this things be more simple - like windows - just click and that's it!!??
This is the kind of stuff that moves people away from linux. /end rant

Thanks...

Maybe you're doing it wrong from the very beginning.
If I understood your issue correctly, you're basically trying to create a symbolic link on machine A to a network share on machine B.
This doesn't work and won't because you're trying to use the wrong tool for the job. Symbolic links are a "tool" which act on the filesystem level (so the filesystem needs to support it) and not merely some kind of binary-file pointing to a filesystem location like on Windows.
All you need to do is to add the network shares to the /etc/fstab file, and those can be even automatically mounted after that.
The correct syntax is dependent upon the kind of network shares you're using (samba, nfs etc.).

I am using SAMBA.

...which is a Windows file system (essentially), and Windows doesn't support symbolic links.

If you were just using Linux ONLY, it is just as easy as 'click and that's it'. If you ARE using just Linux, and don't need Windows support, use NFS instead of Samba, and it'll work. Don't say Linux is hard to use just because you're not experienced with it....personally, I'd have NO IDEA how to do this in Windows, and find doing ANYTHING in Windows to be 1000% more difficult than doing it in Linux.

Ok,
I'll tell you the whole story:

This office I spoke had a Ubuntu Server and two Ubuntu Desktop. They had, on both of Ubuntu Desktop, symbolic links to the shared folder on Server using SAMBA.
The guy who managed this LAN left the country and asked me to take care of it from now on.
Last monday the hdd of the server broke. So, since the job of this server is only to share a folder with a huge amount of files (pics, docs, etc etc) nothing more, we (me and the previous lan manager) agreed to install a Desktop version on a new hdd instead of a Server version.
And now, I can't attach a file to Thunderbird from the server without having to copying them first to the local machine.

The fact is that THIS WAS WORKING WITH SAMBA BEFORE. Therefore, I thought it was because of Ubuntu Desktop instead of Server and installed here in my work place 1 Server and 2 Desktop to mimic the office - with no success.

I admit I'm not experienced. I've been using OpenSUSE distros at home and that's it.

So, can you sugest me something?

Would have helped to know it from the start.
This puts things into a different light. A *LOCAL* symbolic link to folder will work, no matter what the file system. A symbolic link ON that file system won't work in the case of Samba. While you can probably do this through a GUI, a command-line would be far quicker. Get to a terminal on the desktop machines, and:
That's it. May have to log out/back in for it to show up, but you're done after that. As long as the Samba share is mounted, you'll be able to access it via that symbolic link.

You say you can't just browse to the Samba mount point and attach something...what error(s) does it give you? What do you do to copy a file locally? And again, if you're in a pure Linux environment, Samba isn't the best thing to use...it's something that let's Windows play nicely, since Windows doesn't (by default), support NFS.

I browse the network, find the shared folder - right click - "create link" and: "The target doesn't support symbolic links."

The same way, I copy the files to my local machine.
There are no windows computers on this network.

Right..because you're on the Samba share, which doesn't support symbolic links. Did you type in the commands as suggested?
Not sure what you mean by "same way". Do you browse to the path, and select/drag to your local folder??
Then you should use NFS, and you wouldn't have to worry about Samba/Windows limitations.

Ok, I'll follow your sugestions, but not today, I'm already off work . I'll try those as soon as can a let you know the results.
Appreciate your help.

ok, i'm using this: cd $HOME/Desktop
ln -s /path/to/samba/drive FolderName

It creates a sl but says it does not exist, and I know it's me who's doing something wrong.

The remote computer is called 'ubuntu-server' and it has a shared folder named 'share'.

Is it something like this?: sudo ln -s smb://pos-ubuntu/share/ test

You can't create a symbolic link to a path not on the local filesystem (and smb://XXX won't ever be on the local filesystem).
You first need to mount the smb share and then you can create all the symbolic links you want to.
To mount a samba share, you can use something like this:
If this works ok, you can add a line to the /etc/fstab to automount it, as already said.

I typed this: And got this back:

Maybe you're missing the smbfs package. Try installing it with
If that still doesn't work, try substituting "cifs" with "smbfs" in the mount command.

Ok...
None of that it's been working.
So, I've done a fresh install of Ubuntu Server 12.04 here at my office for testing. I ain't got any samba, nfs, etc packages installed.
What would you suggest me to do create a file server which suppport symbolic links from client?

Thank you for you patience.

It would be useful to know what didn't work and how it didn't work (error messages etc.).
If you really want to go down the samba route (with no Windows machines on the network this is kinda useless, but whatever...), make sure that samba is alive and working well on the server by using, on one of the desktop machines:
if pos-ubuntu is the network name of the server. If it asks for a password and you didn't set one on the server, leave it blank and press enter: you should then see a list of samba shares on the server specified. This means that the samba server is working ok.
After this first test, you should try mounting the shares on the server on one of the desktop machines as already written in the previous posts. Make sure that /sbin/mount.cifs and/or /sbin/mount.smbfs exist, as mount relies on them to actually mount a samba share on the filesystem. If they don't exist, then you're missing the smbfs package and you should install it.