I just installed Mandriva Free, and I want to access the mp3's on my Windows computer. I set up the network, and Samba, and I can see the mp3's by going to smb://<comp name>/<share name>
But I tried to use Aramok to build a collection of the songs from my Windows computer, and it won't build it, it only works with songs on my Linux computer.

I'm not sure if the problem is with Aramok, or if I didn't setup the network correctly (this is my first time using Linux). I read somewhere about using etc/fstab to mount the remote directory, but I haven't a clue as to what this means.

Thanks for any help.

VLC works for me.

Most of the media players use streaming protocol to build collections of online sources, but a peer network doesn't use streaming, ordinarily. So, if you configure IIS on the Windows box, and have the mp3's available like a web site, you can use a standard URL in any media player, and it will work. But, why don't you just copy the songs you want to the linux box. I have found people will be happy one day when they have copies of stuff on another computer. I also find people with Windows usually never back anything up. So, you'll be double good to go if you put a copy of all your personal stuff on both computers, even if you backup.

Browsing a samba share using the limited smb:// interface is nice, but is not a way to treat them like local files.

I think if you mount the samba share:
mount -t smb <comp/share> /local/directory
You'll find more applications can use them as local files. This will save you from having to copy them over (although I do like that suggestion for backup purposes and because I don't trust my files on a windows machine) but will still provide you with the feel of local files.

Cool

I used the Mandriva samba mount tool, which "mounted" the remote share as /mnt/Music. Is that the same as using the mount -t you're talking about?

Ya, I might copy all my music, but I have almost 10GBs and the Linux computer's harddrive has only 15GBs for the /home partition.

I used mount -t smb, but Ararok still wouldn't build a collection over my network. It will play files, and playlists if I select them.
I also downloaded VLC, but it has serious problems playing anything over the network, it constantly skips.

Is there somewhere that I can put that mount -t, so that it's run on boot? having to type it every time I restart it annoying.

Any suggestions for how to get Ararok to build a collection over my network?
Since it will play my playlists it doesn't really matter that much, but it would be nice if I could search for music from this computer rather than building all my playlists on my windows computer.