Win'95 printer lock-ups & filters

[Eric Sisler]

Greetings all,

I hope this is appropriate for this list, if not I'll take it somewhere
else.  ;-)

Printer lock-ups:
I have some printer shares available on my Samba server (RedHat Linux
kernel 2.0.32, Samba 1.9.18p3) and they are working just fine in most
cases, but from time to time the Win '95 client will either lock up while
printing or send a print job samba & lpd don't like and it will completely
hose the printer, to the point where I have to clear the queue and
sometimes physically reset the print server attached to the printer.  I
can't even telnet to the print server when this happens.  Most of the
printers are HP LaserJet 4's & 6's connected via external or internal
JetDirect print servers.  What is unclear to me is why this is happening.
I suspect Win '95 is the culprit and if this is just SOP while running
networked printers I'll live with it, but I want to make sure I haven't
missed anything.

Filters:
While I'm on the subject, does either samba or lpd apply any filters to
incoming print jobs from Win '95 clients?  My impression is that it does
not, but merely passes the information on to the printer as is, expecting
the client to be using the appropriate driver.  One of my HP 4mp printers
is setup as a postscript printer under Linux, but I have used both the
standard & postscript Win '95 drivers and the output is identical.  I have
a color inkjet that I don't have a Linux driver for, but I'm wondering if
it matters as long as all the print jobs are coming from Win '95 clients
and I don't try to print directly from Linux.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Eric Sisler
esisler at ares.csd.net