In a message dated: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 15:24:18 EDT
Greg Kettmann said:
>First, sort of an apology. I ask for a fair amount of help and I really
>appreciate those that answer.
Well, we appreciate the appreciation. Additionally, we also expect
that as you learn this stuff, that you will also help us answer these
types of questions when they pop back up in the future.
Pay it forward, as the movie title indicated :)
>My job does NOT require that I have any
>hands on Linux skills, although I'm very well versed on how and where to
>use Linux and how to build clusters.
Neither do the jobs 98% of the Linux using population :)
>I try to learn Linux because I want to, somewhat as a hobby.
Hmm, hobby, no, this is a chore, a hobby is kite flying or something :)
>Despite a room full of books and the Linux Documentation Project it can
>be a very daunting task.
Absolutely, especially when you consider a lot of the docs there are
out of date, written by people who had little more knowledge of the
subject than you, and in many cases, speak english as a second or
third language!
That being said, it still remains the best source of information
in many, many cases!
>I know that I should first read the How-to's, etc. I do. Unfortunately
>this often leads to greater confusion, not less.
Well, a good foundation in Unix is a big help when learning Linux.
Also, being well versed in system administration also helps immensely,
since you are in fact a system administrator for your home systems
(unless you have the spare cash to pay someone to do this for you at
home. If you do, please let me know, I'll gladly be your personal
sysadmin for the right price :)
Short of already being a sysadmin or having a strong foundation in
all things Unix, the best 2 things you can do are read and do.
Those are the only ways you'll actually learn and retain all this
stuff. Sometimes you need to read many, many times :)
I've found that in many cases the best course of action is to find
documentation distributed with the software you're dealing with. In
most cases, these docs are better than what you'll find at the LDP.
Also, for "generic Unix things" like printing, modem connection, etc.
I HIGHLY recommend "The UNIX System Admistrator Handbook" by Evi
Nemeth, et. al. This is perhaps the single most useful book I've
ever read, and 99% of it applies to Linux as well as commercial
variants of Unix. With this one book, you can figure out how to do
almost anything at the system level (i.e. not 3rd party add-on sw
config e.g. samba).
>I've a fairly simple task ahead. I'm trying to retire my old NT box.
>However it still has a printer attached. My network is one W2K box, one
>WinME box and about 5 Win98SE boxes. The Linux box is a server and I've
>never worried about printing from it. I'd like to attach a Lexmark
>Laser Printer up to the server. If I read the Howto's they talk about
>the "print$" share for printer drivers. However, I find nothing in any
>of the sample SMB.CONF files, nor anything comprehensible in the files
>included with Samba. Could someone outline the basic steps needed to
>attach and share a printer to my Linux Samba server (which is up and
>running), starting right after I connect the parallel cable?
Okay, this is fairly straighforward:
1. Set up said printer on Linux and get printing working here
first. Once you do this, everything else will "Just Work"(tm) :)
2. Set up a printer share under samba server
3. Restart samba
4. Set up Windows clients
Let's tackle #1 first.
This is going to be fairly straightforward for either RH or Debian
since the methods are the same. If you have something else like SuSE
or Mandrake, I can only say "see your distribution specific
documentation!" :)
For either RH or Debian, make sure that printtool is installed.
For RH, install the printtool and all associated rpms.
For Debian, apt-get install printtool
As root, run printtool, configure printer appropriately[1]
You should probably get a window with an empty list of printer queues
unless you already have a /etc/printcap file with entries in it.
The following actions are based on printtool 4.5-3 on Debian, if you
have a RH7.x system, you should be able to extrapolate the
approptiate mouse clicks.
Select add (a new window will pop up)
Select Local printer and hit okay
- a new window will pop up
- The defaults should be fine,
change them if you wish and
understand what you're doing.
Click on the 'Select' button
- yet another window will pop up
- find the closest description of your printer
- If you have RH6.x and an HP LaserJet, we've found
that the Generic Postscript filter works best
if you don't find a "Type" that matches exactly.
- Select any other options you are aware of that you'll
need (don't worry, you can always come back and fix them
later).
Select 'Okay' in the "Printer Filter" window
Select 'Okay' in the smaller Printer Config window
(the one with no title bar)
From the menu-bar in the main window select 'lpd->restart lpd'
Highlight the printer you just added
Select Tests->Print ASCII Test Page
Watch for test page
If it works and it's a PS printer:
Select Tests->Print Postscipt Test Page
Watch for test page
If it works:
Select PrintTool->Quit
If it doesn't:
Select the printer and edit the
filter until things work.
If it doesn't work:
Select the printer and edit the filter
until things work.
Setting up a share under Samba:
I'm assuming that you're familiar with the smb.conf file, so here's
an example of what you could do. I'm not going to go into any detail
since this is excellently and verbosely documented in the O'Reilly
Samba book with is also freely available from samba.org and shipped
with Samba. The Samba man pages also document it quite well also.
In the [global] section if you have one specified:
# Global Printer Section
load printers = yes
printcap name = /etc/printcap
[2] printing = bsd
print command = lpr -r -P%p %s
lpq command = lpq -P%p
lprm command = lprm -P%p %j
Create a [printers] section:
[Printers]
comment = printers
path = /tmp
create mask = 0700
print ok = yes
public = yes
browseable = no
printable = yes
[3] printer driver = "HP LaserJet"
Obviously you should customize this to fit your printer.
Restarting Samba:
RH6.x: /etc/rc.d/smb restart
RH7.x: /etc/init.d/smb restart
Debian: /etc/init.d/samba restart
Setting up the windows client:
I'm assuming that you know how to find the Samba server
from the Windows clients, therefore[4]:
- Start->Administration (or whatever it is)->Printers
- Double-click "Add Printer"
- Browse Network Neighborhood
- Find your Samba server and expand it to see it's shares
(if you don't see the printer you added, go back
and test the config with testparms and testprn under
Linux.)
- Select the printer and follow the appropriate prompts.
- If you didn't set up a 'printer driver' selection
in smb.conf, then select the appropriate driver
- Change the name of the printer to something more meaningful
than:
"Longwinded Windows Printer Name Specifying Nothing
More Than The Model Name Of Said Printer"
- Print a test page[5]
[1] Printtool will be slightly different between RH6.2 and 7.1,
since they've completely changed the interface from tk to gtk,
and things are slightly different, but it's still pretty intuitive.
If you get stuck, let me know.
[2] If you're using RH7.x then 'printing=LPRng'; see samba docs/
website/FAQ for more info on the rest of this section.
[3] The 'printer driver' directive will allow each client to
automagically detect the "proper" driver. However, for this
to work, the quoted string needs to be *exactly* as Windows
would look for it. You can obtain this information from
looking at the printer properties under Windows after
you have manually configured one such client.
[4] These windows directions are completely from memory, since I
don't have a windows box handy, actually, I don't have a windows
box! Hmm, just when I thought I had nothing to be thankful for,
I'll have to remember that come Thanksgiving :)
[5] If things don't work, then there's something wrong with either
you're printing under Linux, which you should have successfully
tested already; or with your samba config, which you should now
go and re-tweak, and see the Samba docs to help debug the
situation. There's little I can do at this point.
Also, turning debugging on in smb.conf and tail -f'ing the samba
logs and watching them while attempting to print should prove
to be immensely helpful!
>By the way, if the correct answer is to install something like SWAT or some
>other Samba tool that's fine.
IMO, installing something like SWAT (linuxconf, or any other
relatively crippled GUI abstraction layer) is seldom the answer.
I recommend printtool because it actually does a fairly good job of
getting things set up correctly. Ideally there'd be an easier way
to do this too (well, there is, but I'm lazy, and, surprisingly, I
actually trust printtool to "do the right thing" :)
SWAT and Linuxconf I have no trust for at all, since they completely
hide what they're doing, and what they're doing is almost always
broken in one way or another!
I *really* hope this ridiculously long e-mail helps you some. I have
not told you anything here which is not, to my knowledge, covered in
all the documentation, so if you have questions, concerns, etc., I
really encourage you to hit the docs, it's all there. If something
I've said doesn't make sense, feel free to ask, I'll see what I can
do.
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