I have a RH9 box set up as a print server for 5 Win XP SP2 machines. There are 3 printers attached: a Brother HL-1250 laser printer on the parallel port, an HP Photosmart 7150 on a USB port and an HP d125xi on another parallel port. I have Samba setup to use cups, and each printer is installed using a raw driver.

When I print a Windows printer test page to the laser printer it takes about 2 sec to start printing. But when I print to either of the HP printers it takes over 3 min to start printing. It doesn't seem like it should take so long. Do I have a problem, or what?

Here is my samba config file:

[global]

workgroup = home

server string = samba server

printing = cups
printcap name = /etc/printcap.win
load printers = yes

log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
large readwrite = yes

guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
security = SHARE
dns proxy = no

;[homes]
; comment = Home Directories
; browseable = no
; writeable = yes

;[Profiles]
; path = /home/profiles
; browseable = no
; guest ok = yes

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
guest ok = yes
; public = yes
writable = no
printable = yes
; create mode = 0777
; print command = /usr/bin/lpr -r =P %p -o raw %s -r
; lpq command = /usr/bin/lpstat -o %p
; lprm command = /usr/bin/cancel %p-%j
use client driver = yes

[Frank]
comment = Franks files
path = /SharedDocs/Franks/
valid users = frank
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
writeable = yes

[All Users]
comment = All users files
path = /SharedDocs/All Users/
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
writeable = yes
create mask = 0765

I have found that the setting "use client driver = yes" seems to be the cause of the slow printing problem. When I comment this out and restart samba print jobs just fly through from the XP machines. Turn it back on and the connection time goes up to about 30 seconds before spooling the print job. The downside of not using "use client driver = yes" is that you get the message "Printer xyz on server Access denied, unable to connect" on the XP client printer window. Turns out that the print job still goes through quite happly however.

It would be good if someone had a solution that enabled fast printing and removing of the message "Printer xyz on server Access denied, unable to connect" from the XP client.

From a Windows 98 client, this message does not appear, and the effect of enabling "use client driver = yes" or disabling this, is that it prints much slowere when enabled.

Here's a fix I haven't tried which should allow you to continue using SAMBA
- to do with junk registry entries - under hkey/current_user.. (explains why some users on same pc could print quickly while others couln't)
see http://www.edoceo.com/liber/gentoo-samba-cups.php


Here are a couple of easy solutions that bypass SAMBA:-

My fix was to switch on the CUPS-LPD service - or other LPD service that exposes your printer queue.
Add 'local printer' -> 'add new port' Standard TCP/IP -> add ip/address of printer server -> enter name of lpd printer queue -> select LPD, select 'Byte Counting'


Finally - a solution that definitely needs cups set up. I must try this.
Get your printers configured. Then go to the XP machines and uninstall all printers.
Then reinstall the printers by selecting the "A network printer" radio button and the "Connect to a printer on the internet" radio button. You then enter a URL to print directly to the CUPS printer. The format needs to be "http://<your_server>:631/printers/<printer_name>"

OK - tried them all.
The registry fix didn't work - So I'm leaving Samba printing behind me.

The other two work fine. The internet printer http://<server>:631/printers/<queue> solution took a tweak to cups before it worked.
Used cupsdonf.
Make sure cups is listening on a server ip/address other than or as well as localhost:631 .
(network settings tab)