CUPS, samba, Slack 9.1, oh the pain...

[Redwolf]

I'm trying out Slackware 9.1, and so far I REALLY like what I see. Biggest problem I have right now is getting my printer to work. My printer is on a Win98 machine sitting not but 20 feet away. It's never been hard to set up, but I've run into a brick wall now that Google can't get me out of

In the KDE control pannel (in root of course), I set up the machine to run CUPS (which I selected in the install). Works fine. I go to install the printer. Uh-oh. The SMB option is greyed out. So samba isn't up yet, eh? I set it up under 'Network Browsing' (I only really need the client, right?). Still no go... I restart the CUPS server. Still no go. So I install LinNeighborhood to make sure that Samba works. I can see everything on that particular machine (and the other machines on the network of course). Hmmm... Strange.

Oh look, smb.conf doesn't exits, I see in the console for LinNeighborhood. So I set up smb.conf as the sample config file ( cp smb.conf-example smb.conf ), and tweak it to my liking.

Still no go, even after logging out and refreshing the CUPS server again.

So...what am I missing? Do I not have something installed?

edit: Oh, and I did the full install of Slack 9.1 BTW.

[pbharris]

hi redwolf,
well i ahve no idea on hwo to have a windows printer share to linux. everything i have done is the other way around, but i would guess that one needs to have the printers shared. anyway - unless you are sharing things on the linux machine there is no need to have an smb.conf file.

[[A3D]Hatswitch]

I only really need the client, right?

If someone else is accessing something on your box, then you are "serving."

Look in /etc for either an /smb or an /smb3 directory. If either one is there, then your smb.conf resides in one of those directories.

Reply with exactly what you need. I'll make a simple smb.conf file for you.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by [A3D]Hatswitch


If someone else is accessing something on your box, then you are "serving."

Look in /etc for either an /smb or an /smb3 directory. If either one is there, then your smb.conf resides in one of those directories.

Reply with exactly what you need. I'll make a simple smb.conf file for you.

Fo rnow I just need to be able to print using a Printer shared on Windows.

[[A3D]Hatswitch]

My printer is on a Win98 machine sitting not but 20 feet away.

Whoops! Perhaps I should have read your post more thoroughly. I don't have any printers hooked up to Windows boxes to try it out (my printer is hooked up via a print server, which is plugged directly into the network).

[nukes]

I've finally got this working on my machine. I don't use KDE though. Just the CUPS web interface. I also don't use Slack, but Gentoo so there may be some differences. It should be pretty much the same way to do it though.
Start the CUPS daemon on the local (linux) machine.
Download the file for your printer from www.linuxprinting.org.
Connect to: http://localhost:631/ in a browser. (it may need https://localhost:631 depending on your setup)
From here you should be able to perform most required tasks for printer managment. Find the button for "add printer"
Most of the options are self explanatory. For the location/device URL you need to input:

For the device URL use:
smb://username:pass@workgroup/host/printer
username is your username on the windows box
pass is the password
workgroup is the workgroup name
host is the NetBIOS machine name
printer is the share name of the printer.

Hopefully most applications should detect a CUPS daemon running and will just work. They did for me.
I had been going mad for months trying to get this to work. I had given up on the idea. Only 2 weeks ago I managed to get it working.
I really hope this helps you. I know how fustrating it is having to save something to a samba share and run to another machine just to print it. If you have any more questions or problems, post back and we'll see what we can do. :)

[Redwolf]

Hmmm...I don't think my version of CUPS has Samba support at all...

I;m gonna try loading a new version.

...edit...

Yep, that's what it was. I installed CUPS 1.1.19 w/ samba libraries and it works.

Thanks nukes! If you hadn't shown me that, I would have gone on thinking it was KDE that's messed up.

Oh, and Slack 9.1 is stable as a nuclear missile silo. I don't think I've had it crash once, which is absolutely amazing. The problem is, as you saw here, it's missing alot of stuff I have to install myself. No biggie though.

[flashingcurser]

Yes slackware is very stable, almost every program has installed with the normal ./configure make su make install
I've seen your threads on other distro's, I think you'll be very happy with slack.

You may want to check out swaret ( debian apt clone for slack ) and linuxpackages.net

Happy slacking

[nukes]

Sorry, double post.

[nukes]

I'd look more at emerde:
http://freaknet.org/alpt/Emerde/
A port of Gentoo's Emerge (portage) and Slapt-get:
http://software.jaos.org/
another apt-get port.
I haven't used either of them, but I've heard lots of people have had trouble making swaret work. Personally, I'd just remove the CUPS package and compile from source (if it does in fact not have SMB support) using --prefix/usr