Sharing Printer with Windows on home network

[George1955]

This is my last remaining link to Windows and it's frustrating the hell out of me.
I have a Brother MFC-210c attached to my PC via usb. It took awhile to setup but it is now printing perfectly. I now need to allow my kids to access the printer from their pc's that are running XP. In the printer configuration I've ticked the boxes to share the printer, I've also opened up port 631 on my wireless router. When I try the Printer Wizard setup on one of the Windows machines, it fails because it cannot find the printer even when I type in the location which is ....localhost:631/printers/mfc210c (something like that, I'm at work at the moment) I get a message telling me it can't connect. In desperation I also turned off the Windows Firewall, still no luck.
Is there an easy way to do this?

Regards

George

[Boo]

the localhost:631... is only valid on the computer with the printer attached ie your Linux mint system.

replace localhost with the name of the computer in the windows printer setup. eg mint-desktop:631.

well it sounds like you setup CUPS via the web interface so hopefully it will all work.

[NiksaVel]

if you still don't have this set up, post again here and I'll give you a step by step got it working here...

[George1955]

Thanks
I'll try tomorrow night

George

[Husse]

replace localhost with the name of the computer in the windows printer setup. eg mint-desktop:631

You could also try with the IP, probably 192.168.x.x:631

[George1955]

It worked now I feel an idiot for not even thinking of that. That's what happens when you use Microsoft...you stop thinking.
Thanks for the helpguys

[George1955]

Hi
I need some help...again
I installed Cassandra and I now cannot connect to this printer from Windows. I've set it up in http://localhost:631/printers/ and ticked the box to share it. The URL for the printer is usb://Brother/MFC-210C
I've also ticked the share box for the printer in Control Centre.
I then went to the Windows machine and tried to set it up using:
http://dad-desktop:631/Brother/MFC-210C and I get the error message that it can't find the printer.
I've obviously missed something. Can anyone help?

[Husse]

This is how it looks on my machine:
http://localhost:631/printers/DCP7010
I.e. "printers" instead of "Brother"
Hope this helps
BTW - the URI not URL for the printer is usb://.....

[George1955]

Hi Husse
Ok here's what I tried
http://localhost:631/printersmfc210c
http://dad-desktop:631/printers/mfc210c
http://192.192.168.0.5:631/printers/mfc210c

All received the mesage saying Windows cannot connect to theprinter or the server is down, except for the last try where I used the IP adress. This simply said it could not connect to the printer.
I pinged the IP from the Windows pc and that came back ok.

Regards
George

[D1Wayne]

I might have missed something, but is

file and print sharing turned on in
windows and allow is it allowed as an exception in windows firewall
or other firewall that may be installed?

[D1Wayne]

never tried with printers attached to linux before, just the other way around
but was wondering if samba share is required

[Husse]

I have dual boot XP/Cassandra and a test computer with lots of Ĺinux
I'll have to connect the printer to whatever is in there and see whats happening - but I'm not happy turning on file- and printersharing in Windows
(At the moment I intend to get rid of the two Cassandra betas and install Bianca, so I'm not quite sure of the status of that "box")

[scorp123]

I then went to the Windows machine and tried to set it up using:
http://dad-desktop:631/Brother/MFC-210C and I get the error message that it can't find the printer.
I've obviously missed something.

Try these links ... you need to setup Windows so it can make use of UNIX-style printing services (so you don't have to mess around with SAMBA bloat on the Linux side ...) ... Just follow these URL's ...
http://www.owlfish.com/thoughts/winipp-cups-2003-07-20.html
http://www.networkcomputing.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1608ws1
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1250451,00.html

[D1Wayne]

scorp123 wrote:

o you don't have to mess around with SAMBA

thanks I'll file that tidbit for future reference, if i don't learn a least a dozen new new useful bits a day i really get cranky

[George1955]

Nothing worked so I went back to scratch and deleted the printer. Installed it via CUPs and then clicked the share button. Funny thing happened, Firefox crashed on me during the restart, so I did it again and noticed the share button was unchecked. Rechecked it, restarted CUPs and it worked.
Thanks everyone, this really had me stumped. Even though it was frustrating I learned a lot in the process

[Husse]

Over and over I see that people do more or less unrelated things, and then suddenly the problem is solved. Almost like computers have a (nasty) mind of their own