I am running a linux SMEServer (www dot contribs dot org) on my network of Windoze PCs, and have added a Suse 9.3 desktop system, running KDE

One thing I have not yet understood is how to set it up so that a network share (through Samba) is accessible through the open dialog in (e.g) open office. I can get a shortcut to the share on the desktop using the KdeNet... thing, but cannot open documents on the network through File/Open in Open office, I can only do it by double clicking the document from the desktop konqueror window.

TIA

Why don't you just mount the share in your /etc/fstab?

Yes I can see that I could do that, but I am experimenting with Linux as a desktop as an alternative to Windoze, so I'd rather some more friendly (e.g GUI) way to do it.

Ok, enjoy.

ok, I've seen how to move the network share icons onto the desktop, and they also appear in the "network" tab for the open office open dialog.

However they don't seem to be "mounted" in the way I would expect, thus (e.g) there is no way to use Firefox to pick up a bookmark file off the network, so you have to copy the file to the local system first.

Also There does not seem to be anywhere where I can supply a samba username and password which is used by default, which means I end having to put in the username and password every time. I am sure I did this with Suse 9.2 when I tried it about 6 months ago.

I am not sure if this can be handled by submount. As far as I understand, you would like to access the network share through a folder icon, but it should be mounted on demand. Like equinox suggested, this can be done with an entry in /etc/fstab. However this will not mount on demand. But I wonder if one could use submount (submount mounts a device as soon as the mountpoint is accessed), e.g. like this:

I have no idea if this would work, it's probably a stupid idea. Note that the password will be in plain text.

EDIT: OK, it was a stupid idea! Please ignore, it doesn't work.

I'm not too worried about "on demand", but I am worried about the ability of a naive user (ex windoze) to set it up, and also whether it will ask for a username/password every time.

It won't ask for a password if you specify it in /etc/fstab, or /etc/samba/smbfstab (the later one is more secure since it can be protected against normal users viewing it). Also the syntax if fairly easy. It has to be done once for each share, so it's not too much typing to do.

And if security is an issue you can just create a credentials file. So instead of specifying the username and password explicitly all you do is create the credentials file in root's home directory and add that to your /etc/fstab.