How to mount Windows (SMB) shares on Ubuntu Linux

Here's how to mount SMB (Windows) shares on an Ubuntu system. Most of this assumes you're the root user. You may have to prepend 'sudo' to many commands depending on your situation.

First, you may have to install the following :

- # apt-get install smbfs smbclient

You can do a simple interactive connect with this :

- # smbclient \\\\YOUR_SERVER\\myusername-U myusername -W YOUR_WORKGROUP

This will at least show the SMB share is reachable.

Next, to enable auto-mounting on system start, you'll want to add one of the following to your /etc/fstab file :


Dual-boot Ubuntu Linux on a Windows laptop

I wanted to turn an old laptop from a Windows XP system to one that dual-booted Ubuntu. To get this to work, I first had to resize my Windows partition.

I started out with Windows default disk defragmenter (Accessories => System Tools => Disk Defragmenter). I ran it a few times, but it always left files at the "high end" of the partition so I couldn't downsize the partition.

I then tried Defraggler ( This maybe is a bit better at defragmenting, but still left files at the high-end of the partition.


Linux / Unix interview questions

Here are some Linux / Unix questions you might encounter during a technical interview.

Describe Unix run levels. What does run-level 3 mean?

A program is running slow. What do you do?

You want to schedule a process to run every Tuesday at 1:00 am. What do you do?

What do these shell variables mean?

* $$ - Process ID of self
* $! - Process ID of last background process
* $_ - Last argument

When I define an environment variable, what does EXPORT mean?

What is a journaling file system and why would I want to use one?

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