samba network printer

[monk_rock]

I have three computers one with xp another with win 2000 pro and ubuntu. The windows machines are ok. The linux machine can see both of them. It can open xp and see a shared folder. It can't open the 2000 pro machine. I mainly want to be able to set up the linux machine to use the win2000 pro's printer. can anyone help me?

[XiaoKJ]

Can xp print to the 2000 printer? Can xp use the 2000's shared folder? (note that they are different, and should be dealt with differently.)

IIRC, windows' printer sharing function is really just a virtual machine --- to really use it you must install the respective drivers on the remote machine. As such, windows machines cannot share printers with linux, while linux can share printers with windows. (sucky eh...) (Note: I'm not sure) If this is the case, try to see if you can install the printer in ubuntu and share with windows.

[monk_rock]

The only problem is location. The printer is with the desktop as it should be. The other computers are laptops. Yes xp can print and share with windows 2000.

[monk_rock]

I also was able to get the drivers for the printer for my linux machine. I can see xp from linux typing smbclient -L name -N, but is doesn't work going to the windows 2000 machine.

[blobaugh]

have you made an acct on the 2k box with the user the linux box is trying to connect with? 2k tries to be more secure and usually requires an account on the machine to access it.

XiaoKJ windows can in fact share printers to linux. on every network ive been on there has been a printer on a windows box that i have used. it is easy to setup with cups as long as the connecting user has access

[XiaoKJ]

XiaoKJ windows can in fact share printers to linux. on every network ive been on there has been a printer on a windows box that i have used. it is easy to setup with cups as long as the connecting user has access

Thank god! And thank you for telling me...

Any details on its operation? I can't help forget that Windows' own printer sharing requires each connected computer to install all the drivers of the printer, and then send the printer data over the net.

And can you tell us any programs that can automate this? Or at least the documentation for CUPS + WinPrintSharing.

[blobaugh]

I normally use the web interface to manage my printers. Just click add printer. put in a name you want, then from the drop down on the next page choose 'Windows printers via SAMBA', then the next page you tell it where the printer is with 'smb://remotebox/printername'

It is even easier if you have the gnome-cups-manager because it will scan the network for you. hit network printer and choose 'Windows Printer (SMB)' from the list and it will ask for network credentials then the host dropdown will have a list of the hosts it was able to find. Once you select a host wait a couple seconds and it will load a list of printers on that machine.

In both cases after those steps you want to choose the driver to use. You are right that Windows won't be able to send you it's own driver. Browse through the cups list it has tons of drivers builtin. If it is not there
http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
is a good place to start

[Coral Sea]

I seem to recall that I had to pass along my Windows login password to access the Windows printer from a Linux box. To be safe (and maybe it was unnecessary), I created a new user on the Windows box called "Printer" with its own password.

The syntax on the Linux box is smb://user:password@workgroup/server/sharename or
smb://user:password@server/sharename. Also, if CUPS doesn't have a driver for your priniter, I think you're SOL.

N.B. If the "user:password" text looks a little strange in this message, disable smiles in text in your forum settings.