How to print?
 

Well, I gave up on the dual boot, at least until I can get myself some linux books to read.

My other PC is a Win XP box with an HP 7260 shared on the network. How do I use this printer, or can I? Will any printer work on my Linux box or do I need a "linux printer"?

Thanx,
Anthony :newbie:

If it's shared on the network install the printer as an smp network printer.

some printers are not supported by linux, so check some HCL (Hardware compatibility lists) if your one is supported than you have to configure it which is not that complicated using cups and samba for instance. if your one is a remote printer hanging on a windows box than it wouldn't be a problem either.

Go to http://www.linuxprinting.org and they have your answers for how to setup your printer, and then use samba to share it. If I remember correctly, this will be setup in cups - I know it is for 2 *nix boxes, and I think it is for Linux/Windoze.

Yes through samba you get your box part of windows workgroup or domain and than you have an access to the printers there

This may be confusing because we're talking about two different things at the same time here.

One way mentioned is to connect the printer to Linux and setup a samba server on the linux box to share it.

Since you already have it shared on your windows box the easiest thing would be to install the network printer in linux. This is done with the samba client.

...or, if you're using the CUPS printing daemon (most distros do) then you can use its web-based interface to set up the printer. Just open your web browser and connect to

http://localhost:631

From there, choose "Administrative Tasks", log in as root and follow the instructions to set the printer up as a Samba (SMB) printer. When it asks you for a url, you'll enter something like:

smb://server/printer

Or, if your XP box requires authentication:

smb://user:password@server/printer

Note that if you do this your password will be stored in /etc/cups/printers.conf (this file may be located elsewhere depending on your distribution). It should only be readable by the administrator and the cups daemon, but be aware of it nonetheless.

Also, even if you're not running CUPS, lots of distros include a oll to help you configure printers. Idunno which dist you use, but for example RedHat/Fedora have redhat-config-printer (in FC2 it's called system-config-printer) and Mandrake has (iirc) printerdrake.

Enjoy!
--Brad