my advice is to make an addition to your
file on your laptop, that will list the IP address and machine name of your desktop. An example is:
Code:
192.168.1.150 srv1 srv1.localdomain
Then using nautilus (file manager) click on 'Go'->'Location' and type in "smb://
your-desktop-machine-name/" and you should see the samba shares on your desktop showing up. At this stage, I tend to bookmark so it's not lost.