Because this is the fifth time I fixed this issue I write a blog about it…
Microsoft uses .local as the recommended root of internal domains, and serves them via unicast dns. Linux uses .local as the root of multicast dns. If you’re stuck on a broken MS network like this, reconfigure your linux multicast DNS to use a different domain like .alocal.
To do this, add a domain-name=.alocal line to the [server] section of /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf, then restart avahi-daemon: sudo service avahi-daemon restart.
[server]
domain-name=.alocal
You may need to flush the DNS, mDNS and resolver cache, as well as restart your web browsers to clear their internal cache.
Source: http://www.lowlevelmanager.com/2011/09/fix-linux-dns-issues-with-local.html