[Samba] Re: CUPS/Printing

[Dragan Krnic]

| RH Linux 9 on AMD k6-2 500
| Using HP deskjet 930c on USB
| Samba version: 2.2.7a
| cups version: 1.1.18
|
| 1. Am I correct is assuming that CUPS only likes 
| postscript, and to print to a non postscript printer
| you have to use filters?

No. CUPS needs filter for PS printers too, unless the
file to be printed is a .ps file. Perhaps even then
there is a ps2ps filter, I'm not sure.

| 2. I have set up my HP deskjet 930c on RedHat 9 with 
| cups. It prints just fine. However I cannot use the
| share from Windows machines using a 930c driver. I 
| get this error in the cups error log:
| E [14/Aug/2003:00:20:24 +0100] print_job: 
|    Unsupported format 'application/octet-stream'!
| I [14/Aug/2003:00:20:24 +0100] Hint: 
|    Do you have the raw file printing rules enabled?

If you look up the files mime.convs and mime.types in
/etc/cups, you'll find out that the lines beginning w/

  #application/octet-stream ...

have to be uncommented so that you don't need to 
specify -oraw in the print command.

| So, is enabling raw printing a good idea, and if so -
| how do I do it (for ALL jobs) 

I guess uncommenting those lines solves your problem.

| Using a lower driver such as deskjet 560c or digital 
| turboserver 20 (a postscript driver) works fine (but 
| for obvious reasons this is not ideal). Selecting 
| "print directly to the printer(raw)" in windows 
| gives the same error (I didnt expect that to work)

ditto

| 3. I've read a lot about people enabling 
| autodownload of drivers and the many problems they 
| are having. I'm afraid I don't properly understand 
| the concept. Are these just normal Windows drivers? 

Yes. They're to be put in a drivers depot just like 
the PRINT$ share on a Windows box and then clients just
pick them up when they connect the printer.

| If so what would be the point for me as the 930c 
| drivers don't work. 

It works, but don't let your samba server do the work
that every client can. Put 930c drivers in PRINT$ and
open up application/octet filter so your CUPS just
passes the raw bytes to the printer.

| OR
| Are there special CUPS windows drivers that know how 
| to send something that is 930c ish but not an octet 
| stream. I've read references to installing special 
| drivers in windows but I haven't understood what is 
| going on.

You haven't read Kurt Pfeifle's excellent HOWTO on 
CUPS, Samba and Windows, have you? Google it up.

| Apologies if these questions sound stupid - I have 
| included below the top bit of my deskjet.ppd file
| that I think Red Hat has generated. This 
| (apparently) provides lots of info on the ppd in use 
| and printer languages and so on.

Yes but you don't really need it. It's fine for Linux
users. For Windows boxen you either install the
drivers on each client separately and specify them as
THE drivers when you connect the printer or you dig a
little into docs and install the Windows drivers in
the PRINT$ share and let the clients automatically
and transparently pick them up at connection time.

There's only a small rub that since about 2.2.6 there
are 2 nasty little bugs in rpcclient utility which
make it impossible in most cases to use the automagic
way. There is a fix but it was only checked into 
3.betas so you need to apply the fix to sources and
build samba if you want to use samba as printer server.
You can find the patch file as attachment #62 to bug
#82 at the following URL:

    https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82



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