I have a printer that is not hooked up, and I will be needing it today to print a school report. The driver CD that came with the printer can only be used for Windows though. SO my question is, how does SuSE go about with drivers for new hardware? If I install the driver CD on Windows and hook up the printer, will SuSE automatically detect the printer and find the driver on next SuSE boot-up or will I have to download the driver?

You'll want to set it up through CUPS... Your windows CD won't do much good...

http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/d....p.config.html

KC

I'm not exactly sure what the article is saying about CUPS. I don't understand how I would configure the printer to work

it should be trivial to get your printer working. HOWEVER, this will likely depend upon what kind of printer and what version of SUSE you are using (you didn't specify either in your first post). Here's an example from my own system. It worked just fine with SUSE 9.0 Pro & my newly installed SUSE 9.3 Pro distro :

My Computer : Dell Dimension 4100, Pentium III (Coppermine), orginally delivered with Windoze 2000 Pro. Current distro : SUSE Linus Pro, 9.3, FULL installation

My Printer : HP Deskjet 970 Cse

First, when installing the newest SUSE 9.3 Pro, I loaded just about everything except the stuff for the GNOME windowing system. Thus, I should have all the various modules, drivers, etc. that are currently available with this particular distro (Note : Current distros of Linux will dynamically load any particular modules the kernal may need, if it is available on your system).

Secondly, the particular HP printer that I have *does* have a USB interface. That is, all that is needed to attach the printer to my computer is a standard USB cable. As soon as I attached my printer to my computer, the SUSE program manager, YaST2, became active and asked me if I wanted it to "configure" the printer for use with my system. I, of course, said "Yes" and then YaST2 took off and did everything that was necessary to properly configure my printer for use. I didn't have to load ANY drivers, or use any other special software to gain access to my printer. That's ALL, period. After YaST2 had finished, I could use my HP printer right away without any further configuration. This has worked just fine with both SUSE Linux 9.0 and my current install of SUSE 9.3 Pro.

The point is, a relatively new printer that is reasonably common within the computer world will likely already be ready for use with a good installation of SUSE Linux. The documentation for most standard printers will indicate that they can be used "with both PC's and MAC's", and can be attached via a USB cable interface.

So, unless you have a "MicroCrap ONLY" printer and you *can* use a USB cable to attach it to your computer, you should be OK. However, as I have just outlined, you'll need to have a printer that is relatively common and specifies that it can be used for both "PC's and MAC's". Some of the newest printers may also have some info about Linux as well, but this is not yet as common as it will be in the future.

If you *do* have some type of "MS ONLY" printer and it won't connect to your computer via a USB cable, you might just have to do some searching in order to find an appropriate "driver" interface for your printer. In this case, perhaps some of our other forum posters might be able to help you. In my own situation, the YaST2 GUI program handled everything for me, and all I had to do was say "Yes" when it asked me if I wanted it to configure my printer. Simple, easy, and fast. Hunky?

Good luck . . .

I'm currently in Windows. I' dual boot with 9.3 Pro and my printer is EPSON Stylus CX4600. According to the driveer CD, it works for both Windows and Mac.

I will most likely be installing the driver in Windows first because it will bug me about detecting new hardware, blah blah blah, if I install in SuSE first. Then when I go into SuSE after installing the drivers, what should I exactly do?

Maligogo90,

You need to think for just a bit. Regardless of what you install under Windoze, it ISN'T going to be recognized when you boot up under Linux! You are going to be using only ONE operating system at a time, unless you are running some type of special emulation software, such as VMware (allows you to load MS software in an "emulation mode" when you computer is actually running Linux).

So, let's try this again, shall we? First, decide what paper report you're trying to print. If it is currently located on your MS filesystem, why are you trying to print the thing out under SUSE Linux??? If you're looking for help with your MS distro, then you've come to the WRONG place. :-))

Secondly, if your paper IS loaded within your Linux distro, then just boot up under Linux and follow the procedure I've already outlined (Note : you didn't mention if your printer can be attached with a USB cable). Once you have printed out your paper while running Linux, you can just un-plug the USB cable to your printer and reboot back to MS, if that's what you want to do.

The point here is to determine which OS filesystem currently contains your paper that you want to print using your printer. If it's only located on you MS filesystem, booting up under Linux is not going to help a bit *unless* you know how to access an MS filesystem while using your Linux OS. And, if your paper is located within your MS filesystem, why don't you just print it out from THERE, rather than fooling around with Linux? Depending upon what version of MS OS you are using, there should be an appropriate MS Wizard program that will take you through the config process while you are running MS.

As far as SUSE Linux 9.3 is concerned, my previous post gave you an explicit example of what I needed to do to configure my HP printer : Just plug the dang thing into a USB port on my computer and let the YaST2 program do the rest. It should *automatically* recognize the new device on the USB port and then ask you if you want it to configure it for you. You just say "Yes" and the YaST2 program will do the rest for you. Make sense?

Hope this helps.

Ok, YaST detected the printer, but when I try and configure it, my model doesn't show up under the list it provides. What should I do now to get the driver or whatever is needed?

Oh and yes, it is plugged in via USB cable

You might have to do a little searching around.

For example, based upon the type of printer you said you have (Epson Stylus CX4600) I went out and quickly found a few websites that should begin to help :

http://www.linuxprinting.org/

If you use the "Database/Printer Listings" you'll eventually find a heap of listings for EPSON printers. Furthermore, check out this post from a Linux user who, apparently, has the same type of printer you do :

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/f...&forum_id=6142

Since I haven't done it myself, I can't say for sure if the "solution" this particular user offers ("Sean Bruno") will work with no problems in your particular case (after all, this is a FREE forum, and you're getting all the advise you've paid for!). If you'll read the various comments, what this user is suggesting might be a temporary workaround for you.

You can do all sorts of searches using the "Goggle" website that will bring up plenty of info for your printer. I did note on the "linuxprinting.org" website that there were a couple of listings for printers that *almost* were the same model as yours. So, I would not think that it's beyond the possibility that, depending upon what distro of SUSE you are using (is it the newest 9.3?), you will be able to find an acceptable driver.

Unfortunately, since my own printer has always worked just fine, I honestly can't advise you about experimenting with your own. However, since the printer database listing on "linuxprinting.org" shows that both the CX3200 and CX5200 both should work "perfectly" on Linux, you might want to experiement with both of these. If you've got the new 9.3 distro release and have made a pretty full download of everything, you've probably already got several drivers for EPSON printers.

But, as I mentioned, at this point, some other posters are going to have to help you in your tests since I don't have an EPSON printer myself. However, your printer seems to be a very solid model and has been out for awhile, so I would think that there will be many folks who have tried using the same printer you currently have.

Finally, I haven't checked the "Hardware" sections of this website (Linuxquestions.org), but you might try there as well.

From what I've read about your printer, it looks like a pretty good one. So, I'll bet you'll be able to configure it in the near future, even though you might have to experiment with a slightly different driver, such as the one for the CX3200. Using YaST2, you can always "undo" the configuration for your printer if it doesn't work just right.

Good luck!