Volker Lendecke wrote on Samba-digest:
Message: 10 From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Samba] 2.2.6 and printer questions Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 08:54:01 +0100 Organization: Service Network GmbH, Goettingen, Germany
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If you could get around the EULA, then you could package preinitialized drivers and write the information to smbd's tdbs. We have support for storing driver initialization data already.
Have you heard that you can get CUPS printer drivers exactly for that from cups.org? If they are good drivers, this could be very interesting.
Hi, all,
I'll give you some more info about the PostScript driver Volker mentioned above here as a reference. (Maybe one day before the 3.0 release it will end up as a worked-out paragraph inside the HOWTO collection): You can download the driver files from http://www.cups.org/software.html. It is a separate package from the CUPS base software files, tagged as "CUPS 1.1.16 Windows NT/2k/XP Printer Driver for SAMBA (tar.gz, 192k)". The filename to download is "cups-samba-1.1.16.tar.gz". Upon untar-/unzip-ping it will reveal the files cups-samba.install cups-samba.license cups-samba.readme cups-samba.remove cups-samba.ss These have been packaged with the ESP meta packager software "EPM". The *.install and *.remove files are simple shell script, which untars the *.ss (which is nothing else than a tar-archive) and puts its contents into "/usr/share/cups/drivers/". Its contents are 3 files: cupsdrvr.dll cupsui.dll cups.hlp [ ATTENTION: due to a bug the current release puts the "cups.hlp" into "/usr/share/drivers/" instead of "/usr/share/cups/drivers/". To work around this, copy/move the file after running the "./cups-samba.install" script manually to the right place: "cp /usr/share/drivers/cups.hlp /usr/share/cups/drivers/" ] This new CUPS PostScript driver is currently binary-only, but free (as in free beer); no source code is provided (yet). The reason is this: it has been developed with the help of the Microsoft Driver Developer Kit (DDK) and compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 6. It is not clear to the driver developers if they are allowed to distribute the whole of the source code as Free Software. However, they will likely release the "diff" in source code under the GPL, so anybody with a license of Visual Studio and a DDK will be able to compile for him/herself. Once you have run the install script (and possibly manually moved the "cups.hlp" file to "/usr/share/cups/drivers/"), the driver is ready to be put into Samba's [print$] share (which often maps to "/etc/samba/drivers/" and contains a subdir tree with WIN40 and W32X86 branches), by running "cupsaddsmb" (see also "man cupsaddsmb" for CUPS 1.1.16). [Don't forget to put root into the smbpasswd file by running "smbpasswd" should you run this whole procedure for the first time.] Once the driver files are in the [print$] share, they are ready to be downloaded and installed by the Win NT/2k/XP clients. NOTE 1: Win 9x/ME clients won't work with this driver. For these you'd still need to use the ADOBE*.* drivers as previously. NOTE 2: It is not harming if you've still the ADOBE*.* driver files from previous installations in the "/usr/share/cups/drivers/" directory. The new cupsaddsmb (from 1.1.16) will automatically use the "newest" installed driver (which here then is the CUPS drivers). NOTE 3: Should your Win clients have had the old ADOBE*.* files and the Adobe PostScript drivers installed, the download and installation of the new CUPS PostScript driver for Windows NT/2k/XP will fail at first. It is not enough to "delete" the printer (as the driver files will still be kept by the clients and re-used if you try to re-install the printer). To really get rid of the Adobe driver files on the clients, open the "Printers" folder (possibly via "Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Printers"), right-click onto the folder background and select "Server Properties". A new dialog opens; select the "Drivers" tab; on the list select the driver you want to delete and click on the "Delete" button. (This will only work if there is no single printer left which uses that particular driver -- you need to "delete" all printers using this driver in the "Printers" folder first...) NOTE 4: Once you have successfully downloaded the CUPS PostScript driver to a client, you can easily switch all printers to this one by proceeding as described elsewhere in the "Samba HOWTO Collection" to change a driver for an existing printer.... What are the benefits with the "CUPS PostScript driver for Windows NT/2k/XP" as compared to the Adobe drivers? * no hassle with the Adobe EULA; no hassle with the question "where do I get the ADOBE*.* driver files from?" * the Adobe drivers (depending on the printer PPD associated with them) often put a PJL header in front of the core PostScript part of the print file (thus the file starts with "<1B>%-12345X" or "<escape>%-12345X" instead of "%!PS"). This leads to the CUPS daemon autotyping the arriving file as a print-ready file, not requiring a pass thru the "pstops" filter (to speak more technical, it is not regarded as the generic MIME type "application/postscript", but as the more special MIME type "application/cups.vnd-postscript"), which therefore also leads to the page accounting in "/var/log/cups/page_log" not receiving the exact mumber of pages; instead the dummy page number of "1" is logged in a standard setup...) * the Adobe driver has more options to "mis-configure" the PostScript generated by it (like setting it inadvertedly to "Optimize for Speed", instead of "Optimize for Portability", which could lead to CUPS being unable to process it....) * the CUPS PostScript driver output sent by Windows clients to the CUPS server will be guaranteed to be auto-typed as generic MIME type "application/postscript", thusly passing thru the CUPS "pstops" filter and logging the correct number of pages in the page_log for accounting and quota purposes... * the CUPS PostScript driver supports the sending of additional print options by the Win NT/2k/XP clients, such as naming the CUPS standard banner pages (or the custom ones, should they be installed at the time of driver download), using the CUPS "page-label" option, setting a job-priority and setting the scheduled time of printing (with the option to support additional useful IPP job attributes in the future). * the CUPS PostScript driver supports the inclusion of the new "*cupsJobTicket" comments at the beginnig of the PostScript file (which could be used in the future for all sort of beneficial extensions on the CUPS side, but which will not disturb any other application as those will regard it as a comment and simply ignore it). * the CUPS PostScript driver will be the heart of the fully fledged CUPS IPP client for Windows NT/2k/XP to be released soon (probably alongside the first Beta release for CUPS 1.2). Have fun, Kurt [ this is what I've found own thru my own trial and error method and doesn't reflect in any way an "official" HOWTO; it has not been checked or confirmed by the CUPS folks yet... So: no guarantee for correctness! Please mail me any findings by yourself or if you have suggestions how this guide could be improved or amended... ] -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
