Linux cups shared printer - What a mess!
 

Hi!
Okay, men! This is a problem that is giving more than a pain in my newbie's head, and it's gonna be a looong post (sorry).
I perhaps have the most democratic home LAN ever, an array of 3 computers linked via a modem-router (static ip configuration):
-1 Athlon 64 powered PC running WinXP x64
-1 Celeron running Mandrake Linux 9.2
-1 Apple eMac G4 running Mac OS X 10.2

(dunno if you can see it right)

There's a HP all-in-one printer plugged in my linuxbox, and here comes the problem.
My idea was obviously to share the printer with the other two machines, so I activated printer sharing in Mandrake Control Center.
The Macbox CUPS server saw a printer whose name was "HPPSC950@linuxbox", but whenever I wanted to print something, it just started complaining that it could connect to the host. At first, I tried to add another printer in Macbox's CUPS admin pages, but even using appropriate drivers, I only ended up in printing crappy ascii symbols. I hadn't figured out, but the problem was that the Macbox just couldn't resolve the hostname ("linuxbox") into the ip address. So I deleted the printer I created and left the original one and added a "linuxbox" entry into the Macbox NetInfo database and all seemed good to go. I was then able to print from Macbox without any problem. But SUDDENLY the crappy ascii symbols are back to haunt me! I don't know why but this morning I can't print anymore from the Macbox. The "HPPSC950@linuxbox" printer (which is, I repeat, auto-recognized), will only print those damned ascii symbols and - because it wasn't enough - now I've problems even printing from KDE, because a weird VOID print-filter keeps showing up, and KPrinter complains about "an empty command line while reading the 'true' filter description" or something like that (I can't paste the exact error because I've the Italian version). If I delete the void filter and save changes, it misteriously shows up again.

Keep in mind that I can't issue "modify printer" in Macbox's CUPS pages, because it halts saying that the printer name contains invalid characters ("@").

WT*!?!?!

I spent a lot of time convincing my family that: 1) Windows is weak and flaky, 2) Linux is rock-steady and stable, 3) Mac OS is easy and smooth-as-oil. But the only OS which is working like a breeze with the shared printer is Windows....

If you've come to read here, man, you got the patience of a saint.

Thanks a lot, I hope you can help me!

Bye!

Hi there.

I hope you can still convince your family, because you're right in my opinion.
I don't know if this will help, but I have setup a Gentoo Linux server with a shared printer.
It is configured via samba.

I understand that you Mac has Cups too, so I guess it should be able to get things running.

Here's what I did:

I followed the Howto from Gentoo:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/quick-samba-howto.xml

Just read it carefully, you can probably extract your problem.
The thing is you have to configure CUPS and foomaticdb properly at you server.
For hp you might need the hpijs drivers. It's all in the howto

If you can print a proper testpage from your server, that should be fine.

I will explain how I completed the rest.
To make printing work from XP I added something like this to /etc/samba/smb.conf (which I found after some googling):

That should make the printer usable for Windows.
Like the howto says: you can just add a printer in window$ then. Note that you have to select your servers name or IP and then /quename.
So something like \\tux\HP
Keep in mind that if your samba is configured with user authentication, you should login before you can print.
You have to use the driver for your printer in win, from the driver cd or win itself.
printing a testpage should work now.

To make a Linux client work, go here http://127.0.0.1:631 (after you installed and started cups).
Add a printer. Name it and choose for type windows samba.
path: \\tux\HP . Incase you shoul login: smb:\\user:password@tux\HP .
Note that the servername, here tux, could also be exchanged by a domain.
It works on my work too (where we have some win2k AD setup).
For my printer I figured out I had to use raw mode to print.

I maybe incomplete in some ways, but combining this with the gentoo howto should propably get you going.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

Well, I'll go through it more accurately, I promise, but I don't think that howto pinpoints my problem. It seems more focused on Samba-to-Cups-and-Cups-to-Samba dialogue than on the Cups-to-Cups issue I'm stuck into. From Windows I print with no prob at all (it uses Samba). My problem comes when I attempt to call on the Linuxbox printer from my Macbox (which relies on CUPS for printing tasks).

By the way, thanks for your concern. I'll give a deeper look at that link!

Bye!

Hi Discoboy,

My guess was that printing from Mac is the same as from Linux.
I think you can go to the link http://127.0.0.1:631 and follow instructions then.
From Linux I use CUPS over Samba I believe.
The trick for me there was to choose for device: Window$ printer via Samba.
url is then smb://user:password@host/queue .

For make I chose raw and then for model raw queue.

Let me know if it did or did not work.

For every problem you have somebody will have an answer :)

Uhm...then you're advicing me to use RAW and RAW QUEUE as make and model on Mac side. Worth a try.

Thanks, bye