printer installation on win machine through samba
 

Hello all,
I am having a problem with getting a printer shared on my network. I have a linux box and a win box running win98. I have installed samba on the linux box and created a smb.conf file. Here is the contents of my smb.conf file:
[global]
workgroup = HOME
security = SHARE
printing = cups
printcap = cups

[ homes]
guest ok = yes


[printers]
comment = All Printer
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = Yes
public = yes
guest ok = yes
writable = no
browseable = no
use client driver = yes

[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /etc/samba/drivers
browseable = yes
guest ok = no
read only = yes
write list = root

All I want to do is share the printer. The printer works fine in linux, but the problem I am having is when I try to install the printer on the windows machine. I go through the process of installing a network printer. I get to the part where it asks for the installation of the driver, I put in the driver disk that came with the printer (HP deskjet 812c) and then as it tries to install the driver I get this message "This printer cannot be installed now because its driver
[You_must_use_the_supplied_setup_program_to_install_printer!] could not be loaded. The driver or the INF file may be damaged. Restart Windows, and then try again."

I can see the printer on the windows machine but getting it to install is my problem. I am pretty sure the driver disk is not corrupted. So any help would be much appreciated.

Kelly

Can you tell if the computer is trying to access the floppy or CDROM drive (which ever the driver is on)?

yes I am able to access the cdrom drive and I am able to pick the INF file listed. but when I hit ok it begins to install the driver and then the error message mentioned above is displayed.

Try installing it from the cd as a local printer first then change the port to the remote one.
Often the setup programmes will look across the network for the files, and not get anything.

thanks for the help guys. What I had to do was go through the setup program on the disk. I did that and got the drivers installed and set the port to the network port. However I sent a print request to the printer, and on the windows machine it acted as if it printed, but it didn't do anything. I also looked at the cups printer admin page and it said the printer was idle and accepting jobs but it didn't get the one I sent to it.

Can you print a test page from the Linux box itself ok?

You can monitor the print queue remotely if you login to the Linux box and type lpq

And does your printer driver send the correct paper size to the printer?

yes I can print a test page from linux. I assume that it is sending the correct paper size, it is set to "letter" paper size.

Next is to watch the print queue and see that the print job gets to the server spool ok
lpq via a remote login from the machine sending the print job and check the job is spooled ok...