On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 08:02:23 +1200 yuri wrote: > On 21/09/05, Nick Rout wrote: > > I also discovered in the process how to get windows to print directly to > > cups, without samba being involved, so that was a nice bonus. > > Do tell! > I get people staying at my place from time to time, sometimes with a > windows laptop. > Rather than tailoring my all-linux environment to accommodate one > windows box, I would rather see the windows box adapt to the all-linux > environment. > > One solution is to say "if you want to interact on the network, boot > this knoppix disk" but that won't always go down well. If instead I > can say "install this driver and then you'll be able to print on my > network" that would be a more gracious way to treat my guests.
Server Setup =========== 1. set up cups to work locally - this is pretty standard and I will assume you have this sussed already. Most distros tend to use cups these days. Assume your printer is, like mine, called "hp". Lets also assume the linux machine with the printer attached is called "server". 2. You need to sort cups so that it will allow access from your LAN. Assuming a LAN with addresses 192.168.2.x you need this stanza in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf: <Location /printers> Order Deny,Allow Allow 192.168.1.* </Location> Please note that there is also the possibilty of stronger sytstems involving proper authentication, but if you are not exposing port 631 to the internet you probably aren't doing too much harm allowing it to be set up this way. You can also have different permissions for different printers, if I just wanted to allow access to printer hp, but not others I would instead use: <Location /printers/hp> Order Deny,Allow Allow 192.168.1.* </Location> Windows client setup ================== 3. On the linux box find the .PPD file relevant to your printer. For any printer that has configured, cups conveniently copies it from "somewhere on your file system" to /etc/cups/ppd/hp.ppd. Make this available to your windows computer, cups makes it available at http://server/printers/hp.ppd. NB! windows, in a rare fit of fussiness over case seems to require at least the .PPD extension to be capitalised. Therefore download it from your print server and rename it in capitals. [1] 4. Download the Adobe generic postscript driver for windows [1]. Use winzip or similar to unzip them to a directory on your windows box (or use cabextract to extract it on your linux box and share it via samba) 5. Run adobe's setup program. Click through the forst couple of boxes and when it asks whether the printer is local or networked, choose networked. IIn the next bos put in the address of the printer like this: http://server:631/printers/hp (If you don't have DNS working on your lan simply use the IP address of the linux box instead of "server") 6. The next dialog will say "The network printer is not using the Adobe driver. If you know the type of the selected printer Click Yes to install the driver...(and some other options". Click yes and you will get a dialog box where you can browse for and choose the .PPD file you located in step 3. Choose it. 7. The next dialog asks if you want it to be the printer to be the default on the windows box, and if you want to print a test page. Make your choices. 8. The next dialog gives a summary, click "Install" , or "Back" to correct errors. It then installs the driver and asks if you want to configure the printer - click yes and set up your paper preferences etc. (remember to set A4). 9. Done. [1] PPD files are wonderful wonderful things. They describe the capabilities of the printer in a text file format, and are genuinely cross-platform usable. For every option setting they contain PostScript code which, embedded in the PostScript file sent to the printer, applies the corresponding setting to the job. They allow (for example) Adobe's postscript driver to drive any printer that has a PPD file associated with it, even if it isn't a postscript printer. PPD files are available from a variety of places, and of course Mac-OS X wants them too, so manufacturers are releasing them more and more. Further info: http://www.linuxprinting.org/ppd-doc.html http://www.linuxprinting.org/kpfeifle/LinuxKongress2002/Tutorial/III.PostScript-and-PPDs/III.PostScript-and-PPDs.html (also available as pdf) [2] www.adobe.com - support menu, downloads, postscript printer drivers (windows) choose your language version, its about 7.5M and named winsteng.exe. -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
