[Samba] Re: I've always HATED printing with Samba

[Dragan Krnic]

>>| OK, some progress.  I managed to get access to the 
>>| printer but now I have the bi-directional 
>>
>>In my opinion, you can't really have problems with 
>>bi-directional communications. Samba basically 
>>
>The Lexmark software on the client side insists on 
>communicating with the printer. Apparently, if it 
>can't, it assumes there is no printer or no network 
>etc.  According to my research the way around this is 
>to use the Lexmark Z52 driver, which is supposedly 
>100% compatible, OR to disable bidrectional printing 
>features from the client OR to go with straight 
>postscript. 
>
>None of these has worked for me.  There is something 
>I am missing but I have no idea what it is. Probably 
>something totally transparent to a guru and 
>completely opaque to a newbie.

It's opaque to me too, probably because I'm a newbie 
like you. OK. So you have installed client software
from CD locally on the client and it doesn't work if
the printer is physically attached to your samba
server. You think your client drivers want to talk to 
the printer bi-directionally but since it can't you 
can't print.

Let's step back and try some other scenarios. Attach
the printer locally to a client and see if the client
software then works satisfactorily. Then let that
client share the printer and try to print from another
PC. 

In order to be able to know what exactly that other 
client gets from the printer-serving client, clean the 
respective drivers' cache first. You do that by 
opening the "Printers" window of your "System control 
panel", right-click on the background and choose 
"Server properties". Then go to the "Drivers" tab, 
click on each entry pointing to that printer and 
press "Delete" button. 

After deletions list all the directories under

   C:\WinNT\System32\spool\drivers 

for record.

On that other PC, go to "Network neighbourhood" 
and locate the printer on the printer-serving client.
Right-click on it and choose "Install". If you then
can print to that printer, then obviously 
bi-directional communications is not the problem. 

In that case, verify what new files have been added 
to the above directories. These files need to be 
deposited in a samba-controlled directory in order 
to be able to off-load them to clients when they try 
to attach to the printer.

Then read a little more from a number of excellent
documents by Mr. Kurt Pfeiffle and try to make it work 
with your samba as printer server.

>I would like to know where the uploaded drivers are 
>kept so I can check and see if they are getting 
>through.

If you read Mr. Pfeiffle's documents, it will be easy
to find out where it is. I can't tell you right now.

However, you must assure that the mechanism
for depositing the client drivers with samba does
work without errors. The keywords are rpcclient
and cupsaddsmb.

By the way, what's your distro, release, kernel, samba,
cups, etc. ?


____________________________________________________________
Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail!
http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005