Using network computer names on a local network in Ubuntu Linux

This is something that works straight off in Windows, yet I just spent a while struggling with it in Ubuntu.

The solution is remarkably simple:

If the other computer is running windows and you can't ping it using its NT network name (and you'd like to) then you might need winbind, or to add wins to your /etc/nsswitch.conf file. Here is the guide I followed.

If the other computer is running Ubuntu then you might need to add .local to the computer's name - if the remote computer is called mydesktop then mydesktop.local or mydesktop.home is probably the network name you need, depending on how your router is setup. This is known as Zero configuration networking.