How do I get printer to work over network

[Alpha-Geek]

I gave up trying to get a shared Windows printer to work reliably. I bought a USB network printserver. Now anybody in our home network, (Windows, Linux or Mac) can print without having to worry about whether the PC with the shared printer is on. It's been very reliable. Best to install the printserver to a static IP. Printservers can be bought at Newegg for less than $50.00 US.

[altair4]

Are you doing this and it doesn't work?
Menu > Administration > Printing > New > Windows Printer via Samba > Browse.

If it can't find anything you may have to fill in the dialog box, for example: smb://192.168.0.110/Win_Printer_Name

Of cource you have to make sure that your WinXP printer has been shared:
On WinXP:
Start > Control Panel > Printers and Faxes > right click on your printer > Sharing

If you can't see anything from Mint try this:
Open Terminal
Type nmap -sT 192.168.0.100/22 change 192.168.0.100 to the ip address of the Mint machine

- The output should look something like this:

Starting Nmap 4.62 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-05-06 14:08 EDT
Interesting ports on 192.168.0.1:
Not shown: 1714 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open http

Interesting ports on 192.168.0.100: <--- This is your Mint Box
Not shown: 1712 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
631/tcp open ipp

Interesting ports on 192.168.0.110: <--- This is your WinXP box ( example )
Not shown: 1713 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds

If you don't see ports 139 and 445 open on your WinXP box then you probably have a firewall problem on the WinXP side.

[altair4]

That's very odd. Have you done a mintUpdate recently. I seem to remember that there was a lot of updates to cups recently. You might want to try the "old school" method:

First: run this command in Terminal sudo service cups restart

Second :Open a browser in Mint
Type localhost:631
Select Add Printer

In the Device combo box should be a list of options. If your network is working properly it should show you all the remote printers on your network.

If not then select Windows Printer via Samba
Type in the location of the windows attached printer,
for example:
Device URI: smb://192.168.0.100/WinPrinter
OR: smb://Windows_Machine_Name/WinPrinter

Note: Linux has a hard time with machine name resolution though and you might be forced to use the IP
Address instead.

It should then connect and you'll be asked about what make and model and such.

If there is something wrong with your Mint Printer Utility the method above should work. If there is something wrong with cups then this method will also fail.

[hoe]

Finally got mine working after months of try, try, try ... in my printer property settings on my laptop l put Description - 'HP deskjet 3650' and then in location l put 'wayne-desktop' and in Device URI: l put 'ipp://192.168.2.10:631/printers/deskjet-3650' ... 192.168.2.10 is the address of my desktop. I have tried so many things l'm not sure if l did something else or not but it is finally working.

Wayne

PS: On my desktop under Printer Configuration -localhost > Server> Settings l checked off 'Publish shared printers connected to this system'

[pdc_2]

I know that this is from a different linux distro, but I wonder if there is anything of value here to Mint users:

swerdna

http://www.swerdna.org/

is very knowledgable on such things as samba

and some of this

http://opensuse.swerdna.org/suselanprimer.html

may provide useful background reading for those wishing to learn about samba

I see he will offer an Ubuntu specific website from August

[hoe]

I just got my granddaughter's laptop printing off the same printer.

Wayne