I'm having trouble getting my Epson printer hooked up to my XP machine to work with Linux. The Linux box and XP machine can share files just fine. I even set up the printer in Samba using Webmin. I entered the IP of my router as the remote server address and put in the correct share name. But whenever I try to print something, it gets listed in the queue but nothing else happens. Any idea what I could have missed? Thanks in advance!

Sirrvs,

Check your smb.conf file manually and see if you printer info is correct. I have had problems with Webmin creating my smb.conf files. When I manually made changes, things seemed to work much better.

Also, I am curious as to why you would set your router as your remote server address and not use the ip address of your XP machine.

Oh, I just did that because the XP machine IP wasn't working. Now I know they both don't work. But I'm pretty new to Linux and I'm not sure what I should be looking for in smb.conf. Is it the printing parameter? That's all I can see that's suspicious. Right now it says "printing=CUPS." What should that be set to if I'm trying to use a network printer?

unless i'm being very dumb, smb.conf will only control the SERVER side part of samba, and the cups bit in it is for YOUR printers that you are sharing. however i don't know how to use a printer no a windoze machine... smbprint maybe.

I'm tackling this problem a piece at a time. I was able to get Linux to print. But all that came out was junk. I think it's because my printer is made for Windows or something like that. I've heard there are converters that will translate the print jobs. Any idea which one I should use and where I can find it? I have an Epson Stylus Color 880.

Couple of suggestions.

If you are getting garbage, the data you are sending to the printer is not formatted correctly. I share my windows printers with linux and macs. When printing from the macs, the postscript code (when printing to a postscript printer) must be set to ASCII and not binary. If it isn't I get garbage.
All my printers are postscript. I use ghostscript under linux.

You need to know if your Epson using a postscript driver in Windows. If you look in your printer properties you should see a tab for postscript. If not, it is not postscript. But being that it is a stylus 880, I would bet it is not.

Try going here:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba...k/ch07_02.html

and here - sections 8 and 9.
www.linuxlookup.com/html/HOWTO/text/SMB-HOWTO

between these two you should be able to figure it out.