Good news! Kernel 4.13 can resolve either style of link, so I don't think we need to spend more time with it! gvfs in Debian 9 also works (as do Windows 7+ and Mac 10.12+). What does not work is Debian's 4.9.30-2+deb9u3 and Centos 7 3.10.0-514.26.2 If anyone could point out the patch which fixed this, possibly it could be backported.... Thanks! Chad.