Where's the other printing system?

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004, Dave Washburn wrote:

> Hello,
> I just took the plunge into Fedora Core 2 and I have a problem.  The printer
> in my house is on a Windows machine, hence I have to SAMBA to it from my
> Linux box.  When I was using Red Hat 9, I had no end of trouble trying to get
> CUPS to talk to this printer.  I finally used the print system switcher to
> change it to LPRng, and the two machines lived happily after ever.
>
> When I moved to Fedora, I discovered to my chagrin that there was no LPRng
> package listed, and the print system switcher only listed CUPS, which is
> still giving me the same trouble as before.  So I downloaded a tarball of
> LPRng, built and installed it, but it still doesn't show up as an option for
> printing systems; the print system switcher still only shows CUPS.  But CUPS
> can't find this printer on the (Windows) network, so I have no print
> capability.  I'd like to switch the system to LPRng rather than waste time
> continuing to fight CUPS.  Can somebody help me figure out how to accomplish
> this?
>
> The printer is a Lexmark Z53 and the machine it's hooked to by USB is running
> Windows XP Professional; Samba version is 3.0.3-5.  Feel free to let me know
> if any more info is needed.

WinXP Pro may be able to spool to an LPR queue.  Start the printer wizard,
select "local printer" and create a new port.  I don't recall the exact
sequence after that, but you should see options to create a TCP/IP port
and to use a LPR queue.

On the CUPS side, enable cups-lpd in /etc/xinet.d and in
system-config-printer and restart cups.

This works for my Lexmark laser printer, but not for my HP DeskJet for
some reason I haven't figured out yet.

It is also possible to get CUPS to talk to SAMBA, but it does take a bit
of work.  I did it once long ago, and I don't recall the details.  I found
making Windows talk to LPR was easier.

>
> Thanks!
>

-- 
		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs