Here’s what I had to do to get WINS name resolution working on my Debian based linux:
apt-get install winbind
Note that the winbind program is part of the samba package and I alrady had installed samba and configured it to point to my local WINS server.
I then had to edit /etc/nsswitch.conf adding the winbind and wins entries:
passwd: compat winbind
group: compat winbind
shadow: compat
hosts: files wins dns mdns
networks: files
protocols: db files
services: db files
ethers: db files
rpc: db files
netgroup: nis
I can now ping and connect to Windows machines by name.
Thanks for the tip. Worked well for me.