I have searched both this forum and Google for an answer to my question, but did not find anything. So I decided to post my question here.

I have installed Canon ImageRunner 2018i on my linux box using CUPS web interface. When I try to install this as a network printer from a Windows XP machine, the windows XP machine keeps asking me for a device driver. Is there a way to configure the printer on CUPS/Samba so that when I try to install it on Windows XP machine as a network printer, it does not ask me for a device driver?

Any help is greate appeciated.

THanks
Mak

It is normal for Windows to need a driver, because its printing system is based on GDI/EMF rather than PostScript, so the Linux printer server does not do the rendering.

However, it is possible with some effort to load a cups windows driver on to the Windows machine, so that it can convert Windows emf to postscript before being sent on to the cups machine.

This article goes into some detail about the setup.

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neonsignal, Thank you for your help. Much appreciated.

The CUPS driver for windows is a great way to go, I use it all the time at work.

Some other options are the Microsoft Color Imagesetter driver (which comes standard with XP), or choosing a built-in driver for a very post-script compliant driver, like an old apple laserwriter.

Those two options don't always work, but they usually work. I have literally dozens of printers at work that function perfectly with either the CUPS or MS Color ImageSetter drivers. Conversely, there are perhaps 5 printers that don't, and even they will usually work.


Of course you could always be a bastard to your users, and use the HP LaserJet 4 driver. CUPS will pass it right through to the printer, which will happily accept PCL, and spit out very fast pages. Again, that driver comes bundled with windows (I think every version from 95 or 98 onwards actually). It's safe to say every business level printer and copier speaks PCL. Heck, a good deal of home ink-jets and laser printers do too.

Why is using that driver being a bastard? Because it's low-res (300dpi), black text is fine, but it has awful halftoning. Greys and pictures look worse than dot matrix output.

Good luck.

--Kyle

it is also possible to provide the correct windows drivers to the printer via samba so it installs the printer remotely by just double-clicking the printer in windows.
windows can then communicate to the printer using the windows-driver.
it needs some effort to do so, though.
basically, you would need to set up a printer-share in samba, then configure a "printer admin". next log in as the printer administrator on a windows client, access the printer and install the windows-driver to the printer-share back on your linux-machine.
I once wrote a tutorial about it here http://www.linux-multimedia.ch/wiki/...tig_einrichten
it is written in german, though.

tObias, when is the last time you got that to work? I struggled with that myself under RHEL/CentOS 5 in an NT4 domain with XP Pro clients. I never got it working, despite an awful lot of digging.

My german really isn't any good now (no practice for years), but I read through your tutorial, and have a few questions that I don't think were answered. I apologise if they were in there and I just didn't understand.

Does the samba/cups server need to be a domain member?
Do you need to explicitly list each printer in the smb.conf, or can you rely on samba to load all the printers from cups with the lines:
load printers = yes
printing = cups

Thanks
--Kyle

I am using this solution right now, it works pretty well for me.

yes, the printing-server needs to be a domain member.
i never got it to work with
load printers = yes
so I needed to list them seperately.

tObias,
Thanks, I'm going to give it another go when I have a chance in a few weeks!