How to `ls` a remote folder?

This one uses Samba:

 $ ls smb://192.168.5.4/wdtvlivehub/abc
 ls: cannot access smb://192.168.5.4/wdtvlivehub/abc: No such file or directory

I somehow managed to do it by;

1. Browsing to the remote directory. (pcmanfm 0.9.9)
2. Opening the current folder in a terminal.
3. Executing pwd to get /home/myuser/.gvfs/wdtvlivehub on 192.168.5.4
4. Doing ls /home/myuser/.gvfs/wdtvlivehub on 192.168.5.4 worked.

..What would be a more elegant way?

Your current method of using ~/.gvfs/ is fine, but you don't need pcmanfm for that – you can use gvfs-mount to connect to the share. Additionally, tools such as gvfs-ls and gvfs-cp will accept your smb:// URI.

$ gvfs-mount smb://HOST/SHARE/

$ gvfs-ls smb://HOST/SHARE/

In recent gvfs versions the location is $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/gvfs/ (aka /run/user/$UID/gvfs/), and the subdirectory names have become more machine-readable:

$ ls /run/user/$UID/gvfs/smb-share:server=HOST,share=SHARE/

In older versions:

$ ls ~/.gvfs/"SHARE on HOST"/

(Remember to quote spaces within path names.)

Specifically for Samba, you can use the smbclient program, or mount the share on the VFS layer by using mount -t cifs. (The latter is, unfortunately, limited to root.)

$ smbclient //host/share

# mount -t cifs //host/share /mnt

(For other kinds of filesystems, such as SFTP and FTP, sshfs and curlftpfs exist respectively.)

You can use the command smbclient, e.g.:

smbclient -N //192.168.5.4/wdtvlivehub/abc -c ls