Networked printer access [SOLVED]

[malc]

This is driving me nuts cos I'm I must be missing the bleedin obvious somewhere:

My PC:
  PCLOS KDE4 with static IP address
  Virtualised XP (with bridged network) and static IP address

Native XP PC:
  Windows XP with linux printing switched on and static IP address
  Shared folder
  Canon printer

Router:
  No firewalls blocking anything. The three static addresses allow all traffic in both directions.

I can print from my virtualised XP to the canon printer attached to the native XP PC.
If I run smb4k it can see the printer attached to the native XP PC I can also write to the shared folder on the native XP PC.
I can't setup printing from PCLOS though.

So why won't the PCLOS (KCC) printer setup see the canon printer?

thanks,

Malcolm

[DeBaas]

missing?:
Samba
Cups
Canon printersupport

[malc]

missing?:
Samba

smb4k is working fine so presumably Samba is Ok

Cups

I had the very same printer plugged into my PCLOS machine as well as a Fedora laptop I was playing with.  In both cases CUPS recognised the printer and the printer worked fine with jobs from my PCLOS machine.

Canon printersupport

See above.

To summarise:
PCLOS print job to directly attached printer - OK
PCLOS print job to networked printer on Fedora laptop - OK
virtualised XP (under PCLOS) print job to networked printer on XP laptop - OK
PCLOS print job to networked printer on XP laptop - Does not recognise printer.

From all that's working all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, cups, samba, canon drivers, ports, XP serving Linux on, etc etc. So why that last failure?

thanks,

[pags]

missing?:
Samba

smb4k is working fine so presumably Samba is Ok

Cups

I had the very same printer plugged into my PCLOS machine as well as a Fedora laptop I was playing with.  In both cases CUPS recognised the printer and the printer worked fine with jobs from my PCLOS machine.

Canon printersupport

See above.

To summarise:
PCLOS print job to directly attached printer - OK
PCLOS print job to networked printer on Fedora laptop - OK
virtualised XP (under PCLOS) print job to networked printer on XP laptop - OK
PCLOS print job to networked printer on XP laptop - Does not recognise printer.

From all that's working all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, cups, samba, canon drivers, ports, XP serving Linux on, etc etc. So why that last failure?

thanks,

It's been a long time since I setup a shared printer (in fact, the PC sharing my printer at the moment is very broken...can't even ssh into it, but the printing still works! )

Any way, I do recall that when I shared this printer (via SAMBA...it's on a PCLOS machine), I shared it as a RAW device, because Linux did not have good support for the printer (a Canon S520) at the time.  This allowed a Windows machine to print with the MS driver, and everything worked fine.

Where I'm heading with this is, can Windows share the printer in a similar Raw fashion?  This would allow the Linux driver to send it's own codes to the printer...otherwise, Linux will send it's codes, and the MS driver will try to interpret them as requiring translation (to the MS driver's code).

Just a thought...have you tried sharing the printer from Linux, and accessing it from Windows?

[malc]

Problem solved. Basically, neither the PCLOS Control Centre nor CUPS could see the printer and list it for selection. Instead I had to define the queue by hand in CUPS, details as follows in case anybody else has problems:

* Start CUPS (Kickoff > System > Configuration > Hardware > Manage Printing)
* Select Administration tab and enter the root username/password
* Select Add Printer
* Wait....then select Other Network Printers LPD/LPR Host or Printer
* Click Continue
* In the Connection text entry enter:
  lpd://<xp ip address>/<printer server name>

The <xp ip address> is the static address assigned to the XP print server. I find static address defined in the router much much easier to work with for server machines. The <printer server name> is the same name that shows up in smb4k when scanning the network
* Click continue
* The next couple of screens ask you to name the printer, select the printer driver etc all fairly obvious.

regards,

Malcolm