I have an EPSON Stylus Color 880 hooked up to a Windows 2000 Pro machine (DEESTOS, or 192.168.1.100) on a Workgroup called SANDBOX.
I'm trying to print from a Red Hat 7.3 machine (HATBOX, or 192.168.1.104), also on the SANDBOX Workgroup/network.
I have successfully shared out directories from the Windows box to the Linux box via SAMBA, and I've set up the printer as a share as well, but I just can't get the printer to work.
I've tried everything I have found in the message boards: SMBPRINT, CUPS, PRINTTOOL, WEBMIN, etc. The most frustrating thing is, in each of these, I have been able to successfully "install" the printer and send a test page to the print queue, but nothing ever comes back (no success/failure message), and nothing gets printed.
Of all the posts I've seen, the only one I haven't tried is "rip the printer off the Win box, and hook it up to the Lin box!" Makes sense, but if I tried it, my wife would likely rip something off of me in return, so I'm looking for an alternative.
If you have any ideas on where to start, or even which files I need to wipe out in order to start over (at this point, I've tried so many things that I don't know what I've touched and what I haven't), please post 'em.
Thanks.

OK, I uninstalled all the "printers" I could find, tried to set it up again using CUPS, and "installed" it fine, until I tried to print; then the print jobs just disappeared again.
Help? Anyone?

Print to file. Go to Win box. Get it. And print away.

There's gotta be a better way. Like many others, I am looking to Linux as a possibility of an exclusive OS for my whole family in the future. If I can't troubleshoot a "simple" printer problem, it doesn't give me much confidence that Linux is a plausible solution.
Please don't get me wrong: I am doing the best I can and still trying to learn. But this problem has been very, very frustrating, and nothing I read and try seems to work.

OK, first of all, thanks to everyone who responded for your great help with this problem.

<:::crickets:::/>

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I tried every possible solution I found in this forum and others, and countless web sites, but nothing worked. For anyone interested or with similar trouble, I got it to work by: downloading, installing, and running Webmin, and performing the following tasks, all within Webmin:

• enable Samba
• Add my remote EPSON printer as an available printer share
• Enter the Windows share, user name, password, and host IP of the EPSON printer in the Printer Administration, and selecting the GIMP driver for my printer model, making certain to select "ensure print server is running" when entering information

This worked for me. I hope it works for you as well.

I have the same exact problem as you, but your solution kind of confuses me. When you say "host IP of the EPSON printer," you mean the IP of the Windows machine right? I'm also using Webmin but where do you get to choose the GIMP driver for your printer model? I don't see it anywhere.

Sorry...yep, "host IP of the EPSON printer" = the IP address of the Windows machine on which the printer is being hosted.
As you "install" the printer in Webmin, you'll get to the screen towards the end of the setup that will ask you what printer driver you want to use. You'll be able to choose your printer make and model, and then click the "+" next to it to expand the printer driver choices. Make sure you select the GIMP driver.
If you have more trouble, LMK.

I was able to get it working by going to Mandrake Control Center and choosing Epson Stylus Color 880 as the printer model. I didn't see that option there before and I had it set to "remote or raw printer" from Webmin. It printed the test pages but the only problem now is it seems to go past the margins. I guess that's just a matter of adjusting the paper size eh? Anyway, thanks a lot deesto!

No problem. Sorry I couldn't help with Mandrake-specific stuff, but I'm running Red Hat.
Good luck!