How can I activate sharing on Xubuntu 22?

I recently installed Xubuntu 22 on an old iMac. Most things are working out well. However, there doesn't seem to be any way for me to share folders from my Xubuntu installation with any other computers on my LAN. I have searched for answers but can only see the instruction to right-click on the Public Folder and from the menu select Share This Folder or Create Share for this folder. No such commands exists on my menu. Curiously Xubuntu can see all my other shared devices when I select Browse Network. The LAN seems to only work in one direction. I've had a little experience with Linux a few years ago but I'm very out of practice. I'd appreciate if somebody could shed some light on my dilemma?

What you are describing is called a Samba Usershare. Gnome, KDE, MATE ( with the addition of a package ), and Cinnamon have such capabilities. XFCE does not. You will have to create a classic samba share instead.

The following is an example of how I ( morbius ) would create a guest accessible share of my Public folder:

Install samba:

sudo apt install samba

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and at the end of the file add a "share defintion" to the Public folder:

[Public]
path = /home/morbius/Public
read only = No
guest ok = yes
force user = morbius

Then restart the samba daemon:

sudo service smbd restart

A MacOS client will be able to discover this server and it's share by default.

If you want to be able to discover this server and it's share from Win10/11 add another package:

sudo apt install wsdd

Discovering then accessing this share from another Linux client will be an issue. Not sure what else is on your network so I don't know if you have any Linux clients.

You could ether state the server and it's share from the Linux file manager. Something like:

smb://xubuntu-host-name.local/public

Don't forget to add the .local part at the end of the host name.

Or do a CIFS mount which I can explain if needed.