File sharing between Mavericks and non-Macs I am using a MacBook running Mavericks and my brother is on a Linux box; and we often need to exchange files between each other. Both the laptops are Wi-Fi enabled and I also understand that Mac does allow file sharing over Wi-Fi. While I do know that Airdrop works only for Apple devices, I am sure there must be some way to share files with non-Apple devices using the built-in WiFi capabilities. Any suggestions around how? I have tried checking the file sharing option in the Preferences >> Sharing module but it didn't help. Is it possible to share files with a Linux user using SMB or AFP? I understand FTP is an option but connecting using FTP involves a lot of Terminal steps each time, i.e., activating FTP, sharing password with the user, connecting, and then closing FTP. Is there any simpler method?

Here are the steps I followed:

First of all I enabled guest sharing on my Mac:



Then I activated file sharing on my Mac and designated my Public folder as the share point (default).



Then I tried the following address on my Ubuntu's Nautilus:

smb://172.17.8.212/Public

It then asked for user name, domain, and password and I entered guest for all three, as advised by @deeviate. And this gave the following error:



P. S.: I am NOT interested in installing any third-party tool for this job. Mac gives SMB as a part of the OS and thats what I want to use. There might be tools out there that work better than SMB, doesn't matter. I still should be able to use SMB if my OS provides it natively!
Thought I threw my two cents in.

Being both a Mac and Linux user - I find that once a SAMBA share is created on a Linux machine (browseable option on Linux samba turned on with or without a login - you can "connect as" from the Mac to the Linux machine), my Mac would pick it up and list in on Finder's left pane. Here's a quick SAMBA setup for the Linux machine.

Its pretty simple to setup a public share folder (or even a private one) on the Mac. Here's one guide