i am running Ubuntu 15.10
i can connect to the internet, but unable to communicate with any of my home computers.
how can i "talk" to my home computers; "workgroup"

Do you have a question?

It appears to be implied...

How do you want to communicate with the other computers?

What operating systems/versions are running on the other computers?

just like i do with my other comupters
open up network and i can access shared folders
i run windows xp
vista
windows 8
and windows 10

Well, you'd need to first setup sharing on the machines who's resources you want to connect to. If you've shared out the files/folders on the Windows machines, then the way you browse to them is similar to Windows. Even though this link says 16.10, it should still work with version 15:
https://help.ubuntu.com/16.04/ubuntu...s-connect.html

1 members found this post helpful.

You need Samba in Linux to browse computers running Windows.

check out this link: https://cssoss.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/samba-sharing/

As shown in the link posted by loadedmind the file browser has a built in samba client so installing samba is not necessary. samba actually consists of a server which allows windows computers to access files and printers on a linux PC and the client which allows a linux computer to mount windows shares. They are separate packages.

The easiest way to access windows shares is using the file browser.

Your problem is "connection", should the term "communicate" bear the implied problem.

Solution:
a) See to it that your workgroup computers share the same network. Check how the packets are routed.
b) If all machines in the workgroup is GNU/Linux you may configure a network file sharing, here is a short guide. Or if there is a microsoft running in the neighborhood you can use and configure Samba, here is a short guide.
If they are within same network they can certainly talk to each other, unless your network connection is not properly configured, where in the latter case we may call they are not in talking terms.
Use "ping" to check if they are good neighbors who can talk to each other over the fence.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

m.m.

To build on what malekmustaq said, start by seeing whether you can ping the other computers. If you can't, start by remedying that issue.

If you can, make sure that you have shared folders on the target computers, the ones you wish to connect to with Ubuntu. If they are Windows computers, do not use Windows homegroup sharing; that works only with Windows devices.

As I recall, Ubuntu (and most other distros) comes by default with Samba client, which is the Samba application that enables you to connect to Windows and Samba shares on other computers. You can check by issuing the command locate samba. If you want to share files from your Ubuntu computer, you will likely need to install Samba server. (Some distros, such as Slackware, also include Samba server out of the box, but that's relatively rare.)