OK OK, I'm not complaining here!
I just wanna know WHY!
When I set up Slackware, I chose Samba as one of the services to run because I thought it may have something to do with printing (I never did get my printer to work last time I installed Linux).
I have a Linux box at home which is attached to a switching router, and a WinXP box with a printer attached, off that same router. On the XP box I made the printer sharable (as KyoceraF) and I can print to it if I run Windoze on my Linux box.
This time, (Slackware 10.1) I got a message about smb.conf not being found or configured right. I found smb.conf-sample and, reading that, I made up an smb.conf that looks like this:
-----------------
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
Unknown parameter encountered: "SO_RCVBUF"
Ignoring unknown parameter "SO_RCVBUF"
Processing section "[homes]"
Processing section "[printers]"
Processing section "[tmp]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions
# Global parameters
[global]
workgroup = HOMEGROUP
server string = Samba Server
passdb backend = tdbsam
log file = /var/log/samba.%m
max log size = 50
dns proxy = No
wins support = Yes
[homes]
comment = Home Directories
read only = No
browseable = No
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = Yes
browseable = No
[tmp]
comment = Temporary file space
path = /tmp
read only = No
guest ok = Yes
-------------------------------------
Then I read about smbclient, so I issued an smbclient -L student (student is the name of the WinXP box) and lo and behold! I got the following:
-------------------------------------
smbclient -L student
Unknown parameter encountered: "SO_RCVBUF"
Ignoring unknown parameter "SO_RCVBUF"
Password:
Domain=[STUDENT] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
Sharename Type Comment
--------- ---- -------
E$ Disk Default share
IPC$ IPC Remote IPC
D$ Disk Default share
SharedDocs Disk
print$ Disk Printer Drivers
BOOTDISK (C) Disk
KyoceraF Printer Kyocera FS-1000
ADMIN$ Disk Remote Admin
C$ Disk Default share
Domain=[STUDENT] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
Server Comment
--------- -------
Workgroup Master
--------- -------
---------------------------------------------
I was in 7th heaven! I thought I was finally going to get my printer going!
I then went into KDE and started Control Center > Peripherals > Printers, Add ed a PrinterClass, and then my world fell apart!
When it went into Browse mode, it found the WinXP box (student) but there was NO PRINTER ATTACHED SHOWING!
I was mortified.
I chewed what's left of my nails, ate yet another lolly, rubbed my bald head
, scratched my privates (for inspiration only) and then, I thought :
"What the hell - you've come so far, you may as well nominate the printer and load a driver for it and see what happens"
So I did.
Then when it asked me to load a printer driver, all I had was a Kyocera CD with PPD files on it, and when I tried pointing the configurator to the appropriate PPD file, it complained that it could not load it (??). Mind you, the Kyocera is NOT a Postscript printer, it uses the PCL language, so...
Anyhow just to test the config I clicked on Printer > Configure in the Control Center and a pop-up informed me that it was unable to load a valid driver for the printer
Ah well, I thought I'd bombed out again.
Then, piqued as I was, I thought I'd try a printout anyway, just to see if ANYTHING, no matter how garbled, came out of the printer.
AND the bloody thing WORKED! IT WORKED I TELL YOU!!
I felt like I had just created Frankenstein!
It had no right to work!
The printer had not been found during the setup, so why - no - how did CUPS know where to send it? It did not even have a proper driver!!
I tell you guys, there's more to this CUPS software than meets the eye - sheer bloody magic! Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm just bloody well mystified.