Re: Best Way to Share Printers?

[Alvin Oga <aoga@ns.Linux-Consulting.com>]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004, Andrea Vettorello wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:40:25 -0400, Thomas H. George
> <xyz@spininternet.com> wrote:
> > I have a LAN connecting three Debian systems.  Until now there has never
> > been a need to share printers as pre-LAN each system had its own printer.
> > 
> > Now one printer has died and we wish to share.  I have references on
> > Samba and Swat but they refer to sharing among Windows and NT systems.

you do need to understand what samba is doing and can be config'd for

you do need to be able to have windoze boxes/users login into the 
print server ( aka smaba is configured and running on the linux box )

do not try the printer stuff till network map of the deb box (
/home/windozeusername ) onto your windoze box is working

> > Is there a better alternative for an all Debian LAN?

simple way ...

create a /home/windozeuser directory and login on the print server

	- make sure the windoze user can ssh into the print server

	- run smdpasswd or equivalent so that the windoze box can
	see linux#/home/windozeuser on their networkmapped drive
	on their windoze pc

	- use samba.conf from the samba.org ...
	( check for /home   to be shared
	( check for /etc/printcap to be shared
		- use the samba tools to check your samba config

	- swat is a piece of !@#$% and needs to be rewritten
		- most samba problems can be solved in a couple
		minutes if you use the latest samba.org config files

	- do NOT attempt to do printer stuff if you cannot do
	network mapped drives and can write drag-n-drop files
	from your windoze exploder into the home directory on the 
	linux box ( print server )

	- don't forgot to turn on firewall options for the bad smb/nmb
	stuff

assuming you know how to edit /etc/printcap ... 
	- edit /etc/printcap for your print server

	- other linux would need to be configured for remote printer
	- other windoze boxes need to use PrintManager->Remote

	start lpd or lprng

	- 5 minutes later... you're up and running

	- watch out for input and  output filters
	( you will need to find the app that has a filter for
	( your exact printer by name or good luck experimenting
		- mozilla/netscape etc expects to print to a 
		postscript printer

		- if you use a standard pcl printer, you need
		to preprocess the incoming *.ps into PCL
		that the printer understands
		( apsfilter or magicfilter or foomatic or ?? )

	- use the filter that lists your printer explicitly
	in its supported list of printers

	- cups is way too broken ... in my book also needs to be rewritten
	( i dont want to fiddle with this and that )

c ya
alvin