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User 'Logos' stated the following in another question's response:

If you just want to transfer files while on your LAN and you're using wifi, Samba Filesharing works super well. You can just browse to your phone's SD card like it was a regular network samba share from your desktop.".

I'm using Ubuntu Lucid on my desktop and Cyanogen Mod 7.2 on my ZTE Blade phone. Could anyone define the steps required to do the above?

Silly me for not noticing Enable on the Menu options. I'm now getting on Samba Filesharing 'Title' screen: Enabled - Running,\192.168.1.4 (i.e. correctfixed ip address assigned by router using phone's MAC address), \ANDROID, Wakelock Active. But when trying (in Nautilus) to 'Connect to Server' (with parameters of SSH & 192.168.1.4), I get popup displaying 'Could not display "sftp://192.168.1.4/", because the host could not be found.'. Router's admin shows that phone is not attached! I can ping phone from PC. but not vice versa. Tried using Terminal Emulator to ping PC from phone: tested first by phone ping itself but don't know how to stop Terminal Emulator as no Ctrl key on soft keyboard. ATP does not kill it!

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

This answer is to the same effect: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/29671/19168

Your pictures, downloads, and any other files you may want to transfer can be uploaded to your computer temporarily and then from your computer to your new phone.

Alternatively, you could do this last bit a number of ways:

You get the idea: File Transfer Apps

Also, Airdroid as mentioned in this answer: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/29584/19168

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up vote 2 down vote

There are 2 options:

  • Root your phone.
  • Install the Samba Filesharing app, or any other Samba server for Android.
  • Install samba on Ubuntu, or any other Samba client (there are some on Android too). This should do: sudo apt-get install samba, or any other equivalent command on another OS. You don't need this step on a Windows machine.
  • Optional: Install an app on your PC to make it easier to configure samba on your PC. apt-cache search samba should give you some good results (or anything equivalent).

The point is that this Android application will let your device show in the "My Network Places" of Win XP, and the "Network" of Win Vista/7 and Ubuntu. From there you can browse to smb://ANDROID/ (or \\ANDROID for Win) in your file manager.

Make sure you set the WORKGROUP correctly on the Android app. And if you face some problems with accessing your phone, try using the IP address instead of the name (ANDROID by default).

Otherwise, if you're not rooted for example, you could install a file manager app with support for Samba shares (like ES File Explorer or File Expert for example), or any other samba client (like AndSMB). This way you could access shares on other computers on the network (but not share your own SD Card, you need a samba server on your device for this to work).

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I'm already using Samba under Ubuntu (for sharing with Windows PCs). Phone already rooted. I've uninstalled (using Easy Uninstaller) Dropbear &SSHDroid which I'd previously tried. I've set workgroup, password & user in Samba Filesharing on phone. After setting these, it came up with something about stopping & restarting Samba. I didn't know if this referred to the PC or the phone. So I killed Samba Filesharing on phone (using Advanced Task Killer) and started Samba Filesharing again on phone. However, on phone, it shows 'Disabled - Not Running' on 'Title' screen and I don't know what to do. – John Rose Sep 24 '12 at 11:40
Press the menu key then enable :) – jadkik94 Sep 24 '12 at 11:54
Silly me for not noticing Enable on the Menu. Now the 'Title' screen says: Enabled - Running,\\192.168.1.4 (fixed ip address assigned by router using phone's MAC), \\ANDROID, Wakelock Active. When trying in Nautilus to 'Connect to Server' (params of SSH & 192.168.1.4), It says 'Could not display sftp://192.168.1.4/ because the host could not be found.'. Router shows the phone is not attached! I can ping phone from PC but not vice versa. Used Terminal Emulator to ping PC from phone: tested first by phone ping itself but don't know how to stop Terminal Emulator as no Ctrl key on soft keyboard. – John Rose Sep 24 '12 at 12:21
Sorry for late reply :) sftp://192.168.1.4/ suggests it is trying to connect via Secure FTP (or SSH). You should type in the location bar smb://192.168.1.4/ (Ctrl+L to show it in Nautilus I think). Then it will connect to that IP via Samba Protocol and not SFTP. (For the terminal emulator, my terminal emulator, that comes with CM7, can emulate Ctrl key by volume down, try VolDown+c for example. it might be some other key depending on app and settings). Hope it helps. – jadkik94 Oct 1 '12 at 20:37

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