Sharing files between your Ubuntu and Windows computers, Samba file sharing is the best option and it is free software too. There are many advantages of sharing files in a local LAN network. For instance, it is great to be able to access the music and movies on the server from any machines in the LAN.

Here is my setup for Samba in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. First,

$ sudo apt-get install samba

for finishing the installation.

Now, create a share folder to be accessible to guest users at /srv/samba/share for example,

$ sudo mkdir -p /srv/samba/share

$ sudo chown nobody.nogroup /srv/samba/share

$ sudo chmod 777 /srv/samba/share

After create the share directory, open and edit /etc/samba/smb.conf as follows;

$ sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

uncomment

#security = user

then add the following,

[share]
comment = ubuntu file server guest access share
path = /srv/samba/share
browsable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = no
create mask = 0755

$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Now, guest can access the share in LAN.