[Samba] 2.2.6 and printer questions

Thomas Bork tombork at web.de
Fri Nov 1 21:02:41 GMT 2002


Hallo Gerald (Jerry) Carter,

you wrote:

>> I have 2 questions about printer driver installation on w2k-client
>> for a samba served printer:
>>
>> 1. If I want to install a driver on w2k workstation, I choose
network
>> printer and then can browse the network. If printers are served from
>> a Nt/w2k-server, in my opinion it is not nessesary to double click
>> the netbios name of the Nt/w2k-server to see the shared printers.
>> In this case under the Workgroup-Name are all shared printers of all
>> servers visible like
>>
>> - workgroupname
>>      \\server1\printer1
>>      \\server2\printer1
>> + server1
>> + server2
>>
>> If printers served from Samba it is nessesary to double click the
>> netbios name of the samba server to see printershares. Why?
>
> Unknown.  Tim had looked into this but I don't remember the details.


I'm also thinking to remember (may be this is very bad english ;o) the
question on this list and someone, who wants to look into it for 2.2.6.
But the behavior is the same as in 2.2.5.


>> 2. If I'm uploading printer drivers for w2k and win9x via the APW
>> (Add Printer Wizzard) from a NT/W2K/XP-client to the Samba server,
>> w2k alway show me, that on the samba server only a driver for w2k
>> exists. Why?
>
> No idea.  Need more details.

I'll try to give more details, please answer, if it is not enough:

Uuups...
Sorry, my failure. I was a little bit confused, because when uploading
drivers via (in W2K german version called:)
"Freigabe/Zusätzliche Treiber"  --> may be in english "Share/Additional
drivers"
and choosing
"Intel Windows NT 4.0 or 2000"
then, after upload, on the same tab, checkbox
"Intel Windows 2000"
is checked an not
"Intel Windows NT 4.0 or 2000",
which I checked for uploading. Sorry for the confusion.

But another question:

Is it possible, to bundle/deliver printer drivers in an tarfile, whith
their relationships to predefined shares?

The background is this:

I'm the maintainer of a Samba package for the GPL project eisfair
(www.eisfair.org), an easy to use internet server.
In my package, currently based on Samba 2.2.6, it is possible to print
to an virtual printer for creating PDF files and to a virtual printer
for the fax package (installed ghostscript package is needed) . On the
windows clients a postscript printer driver must be installed for each
of this virtual printers.
It will be nice, if the driver installation is so easy as possible for
the user. Thats why I'm interested in an automatic driver installation
based on the print$ share. But I can see any problems with this:

If I want to deliver drivers for nt/w2k/xp and win9x/me in the package,
I think I have to include in the package not only the complete
directory predefined in [print$] with the drivers. I think I have also
to deliver the tdb-files

ntdrivers.tdb
ntforms.tdb
ntprinters.tdb
printing.tdb

because anywhere here the relationship between printershare and driver
(format and so on...) is saved. But how can this be done without
breaking existing relationships with existing drivers and printers in
the existing configuration on user side?

Any ideas or references would be appreciated.

Thanks  :o)

tom




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