Printing to XP Shared printer with FC-5
 

OK, Here is my problem.

I am using RedHat FC-5,
My Wife is using XP Pro w/SP-2

I have a Color Laser Printer (Konica Minolta 2400 w) attached to the XP Machine, and shared for the Windows Network, I can see the XP machine with the Computer running FC-5, I can set up the printer using an IP address, This is where my problems begin.
With the Printer applet in Windows open, When I go to print a test page on the FC-5 computer I see a page appear in the document column, then it’s gone,
but nothing prints . I am still new to Linux, But a nudge in the right direction would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

I believe you need the samba-common and samba-client RPMs installed, if you don't have them already. The latter contains the smbprint command, which is a low level file use by cups. (There may be other packages required, like various gutenprint and foomatic packages.)

You must create a print queue for the Windows printer with cups:
browse to http://localhost:631/,
Click on Do Administrativ Tasks,
Enter username root and root's password,
Click on Add Printer and fill in the blanks,
The Device is "Windows Printer via SAMBA" from the menu,
The Device URI is smb://hostname/printer, substituting the real hostname and printer.

This may require a little playing around. Ultimately you can go back to the Manage Printers page and stop and start the print queue and print a test page.

Thanks for your feedback here,this is what I have done
I checked and I do have SAMBA installed, I was able to pull up the Cups printer config page, I put all the info in and even downloaded a new ppd file for the printer, same problem, It goes to the printer, I see the document briefly in the document ready to print on the windows computer then it's gone, nothing prints, the cups status page says that it was completed and sucessfull.....
Soo, What can I try now? I have literally spent hours trying to get this to work....

I just ran an experiment, and it worked.

First, note that I no longer print to our Windows server. I used to, but it was a real hassle. And anyway, the Windows server just sends it to the little D-LINK ethernet printserver that the printer plugs into. I now bypass Windows and send it directly to the printserver myself using 'socket://printserver:9100' as the cups URI (printserver is in my /etc/hosts.)

But back to the test. I executed this command (of course using my actual server, printer, and windows username): It prompted me for my Windows password, and it printed the file.

I got the idea for that test by reading the shell script /usr/bin/smbprint (actually, it's smbprint3 on my Mandriva system). I think that's the low-level file that cups calls to actually do the printing. It talks about setting up a .config file in the spool directory. I don't remember ever doing that, and I know I had SMB printing actually working at one point, so maybe cups does it for you.

There is also a line in smbprint that it says you can change:
logfile=/dev/null

If you change that to be an actual file, you will get a record of everything cups does at the low end, I guess.

Anyway, I hope that gives you some ideas about what to do next. And if all else fails, you can go buy a little ethernet printserver box and let both Windows and Linux PCs print to it.

Thanks for your time Ken,
I did as you said, Again, I see it fore a brief second, then its gone, but it does not print.
I thought about the print server, even bought one ( NetgearPS121 ), but after pulling what little hair I have left out, found out from Konica- Minolta that 2400w not support by a print server.
I guess for now, If I have something really important, I will put it on a flash drive or email it to myself, I wanted to do this via network and sharing just to learn how, but at some time You just got to give UP!
IF anybody else has any ideas, let me know, I am eager to learn, and I thank you for your time,trouble and advice.