I’ve been trying for at least a week to get this working (with an Epson Stylus DX4200), and it’s just not happened…until now!!!
Originally I tried (I don’t know why, so don’t ask) to share the printer over the samba share that I currently have in place on the network, as it seemed a good idea…at the time, I know no that it’s something that should never be attempted (currently).
After many tedious tweakings of many various things, and still no printing across the network. I finally stumbled across this thread on the forums which I followed, and happily…it worked!!! I now have printing across the network. I checked by printing a test page from my laptop (Ubuntu) and then an XP desktop downstairs.
After all that effort of trying to share the printer via samba, it turns out that I managed to share it using ipp – which even Windows supports (though not many people seem to know about that). I think that the main issue I was having is that searching for how to share a printer via Ubuntu gave GUI options suited to the desktop, and not Ubuntu Server – which is CLI only, so I had to edit
Anyway – it works now, I’m happy – and the rest of the family is happy too, and it’s 10x more convenient than before.
#1 by oliver on September 29th, 2008
Hmm… does Ubuntu Server really have no way to configure printer sharing without installing Gnome?
#2 by jimcooncat on September 29th, 2008
I’ve had very little problems sharing through Samba using Ubuntu Desktop. I’m even sharing a JetDirect printer that way, and it works better than with Windows communicating directly with it. I’m guessing the Server install isn’t so simple? That’s too bad, I’m provisioning some servers this week that I was hoping to use with this.
#3 by Joeb454 on September 29th, 2008
Actually I should probably point out that I didn’t choose to install the print server when I installed the server image, and neither was the printer connected to the server.
I’d imagine that may make things a little easier
And oliver – it does, but you have to configure it manually, or enable the web interface (it’s disabled by default on Ubuntu installs)
#4 by Ante Karamatic on September 29th, 2008
‘(it’s disabled by default on Ubuntu installs)’
Huh? If you install cupsys package, you’ll get cups web management on http://localhost:631. If you don’t install it, it still isn’t disabled – it doesn’t exist.
What are guys talking about?
#5 by Joeb454 on September 29th, 2008
Sorry I forgot that
Ante is right – the cupsys web UI is enabled by default, but only for localhost. However on a CLI only server, that’s not really that useful.
I had to enable it to listen to port 631 from any computer on the network before I could access the web UI.
I hope that makes things clearer
#6 by Ante Karamatic on September 29th, 2008
How is that unusable? w3m http://localhost:631
I hope you don’t expect Ubuntu to listen on non-local IP address by default?
#7 by Joeb454 on September 30th, 2008
No I don’t expect it to listen to a non-local IP by default.
Either way, it works now (provided I’m in my LAN) so I’m happy
#8 by Pepe on November 20th, 2008
Hi,
What if you want to install on ubuntu server a shared windows xp printer and then share it yourself (by means of a logon script) to your domain computers (via samba + openldap) ??? Did I explain myself correctly?
* Windows xp with local printer and shared
* ubuntu server uses that share and offers it to the rest of the network through samba
* other xp clients connect to it via samba logon script
If you wonder why, is to overcome the 10 concurrent connections issue with XP pro. (HAck didn’t work donno why)
Thanks for your time.