Hi All,

How to print in Mandrake 9.2 using a Windows XP shared printer?

I have an Brother HL-1450 laser as the local printer on a Win XP machine. Not truly networked i.e. XP machine must be on for another machine to use the printer.

I tried using printer/drake to configure a tcp/ip connection and then a SMB/Windows, but I cant get it to print.

I installed the additional networking components of XP. I have installed samba on the mandrake machine. when I try to configure samba i get this message:

"An error occured while loading localhost:901
Could not connect to host localhost (port 901)"

So it feels like I am fishing alone in the dark, I don't think I know what I am doing with samba, tcp/ip or anything.

I would like to get this to work, otherwise I will need to get a very long USB cable and install the Brother 1450 as my linux machine's local printer which I know works.. And when the XP person (my wife) want to print I will have to shut down Mandrake and log on to win 2000 and that is a drag.

Help

Does any one have and suggestions?

Hopefully,

winky.

Hi,

Your first problem might be that linux cannot perform read-writes to an NTFS formatted partition(not even with \Root access . So if your XP OS is not on a FAT32 & is on NTFS, it will not work, because your printer is not a stand-alone networked printer.

Since you cannot convert from NTFS to FAT32, you would have to re-install XP, after you save your DATA, & format to FAT32. Then during XP's install when it askes how it should proceed, when it gets to where it asks what it should do about your win file system, scroll down to "leave current file system"

do not format with NTFS.

While FAT32 is not as secure a file-system, as NTFS, with the correct, winXP updates & firewall setup you should be fine, & will have no problem printing to your XP machine through your mandrake PC.

Regards,


PCfixinman

Set the XP printer to 'shared'

Make sure Samba is running.

Use CUPS to add it as a smb printer and it should work fine.

chris is right, i have a similar set up . i have a printer on an xp machine shared. i have redhat on another machine. first make sure that the printer is shared, then go to control center=>peripherals=>printers=> administrator mode=>type in your password . after that follow the instructions.

another method is

open your web browser and go to http://localhost:631

then click on printers=>then add printer. then is going to ask your for user name and password, make sure u type root for username with the appropriate password. enter a name , location, and description of your printer and click continue. in the next screen you need to select printer via samba. next you will need to enter the uri , the following is an expample

smb:/usernameassword@Server/Printername; if i remember correctly, username is the username on the xp machine, password of the same user, Server is the name of the xp box where the printer is attached. hope this helps,

Thanks guys, but does do I have to change the file system on the XP box to FAT from NTFS?

And is samba difficult to get running? I installed it, but how do i use it?


many thanks,

richard

i was able to follow snakeo2 2nd set of suggestions [using localhost:631] and it worked like a charm. many many thanks to all three of you for giving me a helpful hand.

wow inter-species printing! cool.



richard.

glad it worked.