Ethernet and Wireless Home Networking

[alligoodw]

Setup: I have an Acer Aspire laptop connected to the Internet with a LAN Cable. I use Linux Mint 9 on this laptop with an attached HP all-in-one printer.
Setup: My wife has an Acer Aspire laptop connected to the Internet using wireless from my router. Her laptop is sporting Windows 7 Home edition.

Question - Using the above scenario, would I have any difficulties in setting up a Home network environment between our computers? To be specific, should my laptop use wireless as well?

Objective: Wife's laptop to recognize Husband's laptop and utilize his attached printer (HP) via wireless networking.

[JasonLG]

Setup: I have an Acer Aspire laptop connected to the Internet with a LAN Cable. I use Linux Mint 9 on this laptop with an attached HP all-in-one printer.
Setup: My wife has an Acer Aspire laptop connected to the Internet using wireless from my router. Her laptop is sporting Windows 7 Home edition.

Question - Using the above scenario, would I have any difficulties in setting up a Home network environment between our computers? To be specific, should my laptop use wireless as well?

Objective: Wife's laptop to recognize Husband's laptop and utilize his attached printer (HP) via wireless networking.

You should be able to share the printer over the network Ethernet or wireless. First share the printer from you laptop then download and install the windows drivers for that printer on your wife's computer then add the network printer on your wife's computer.

[TBABill]

Your system has no preference whether wired or wireless. All it is looking for is the other device on the network and that device is found through that network, whether wired or wireless. The wired connection is normally more solid and consistent because of the inherently changing environment with wireless (walls, location, rf emissions from other devices, distance) so if the wired works for you then that is probably as good as it gets. But going wireless is still a great choice normally if you have good signal strength and no interference. I am exclusively wireless on all but 1 old Windows machine because it's garbage anyway...may as well have a decent connection. All my linux machines are wireless and work great. We share an HP all in one but it's a wireless printer.

Shouldn't be tough for you at all. If you get stuck, post back and you'll get some great help from the forum members

[alligoodw]

I must confess, I'm a little confused. My wife's laptop doesn't recognize my laptop on the network. Too, I'm a little confused about localhost and Samba. Can you have a network with localhost only? It's probably something very small and something which I've overlooked. With all the documentation and network verbage e.g. workgroup, IPP, IP address, machine name and so on and so forth, I'm a little lost in the shuffle.

WHAT I NEED . . . I need to know step by step what I have on my system and what I don't have that I should have. I know this is elementary but it looks like baby steps are in order here. It's imperative that I get this printer up and running.

Your help is highly appreciated. Can someone get on board, fasten their seat belts and tutor my wee little mind?

[JasonLG]

I must confess, I'm a little confused. My wife's laptop doesn't recognize my laptop on the network. Too, I'm a little confused about localhost and Samba. Can you have a network with localhost only? It's probably something very small and something which I've overlooked. With all the documentation and network verbage e.g. workgroup, IPP, IP address, machine name and so on and so forth, I'm a little lost in the shuffle.

WHAT I NEED . . . I need to know step by step what I have on my system and what I don't have that I should have. I know this is elementary but it looks like baby steps are in order here. It's imperative that I get this printer up and running.

Your help is highly appreciated. Can someone get on board, fasten their seat belts and tutor my wee little mind?

You're wife's computer doesn't have to be able to see your computer on the network it needs to be able to see your printer. But to be safe make sure you have nautilus-share installed by entering this into a terminal.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install nautilus-share

I already told you how to do it once but here's a more detailed set of instructions.
1. Share your printer.
go to MintMenu> Control Center> Printing. Right click your printer click policies in the menu on the left and check the shared box.

2. Download and install the windows drivers for your printer on your wifes computer. Follow whatever setup instruction the manufacturer provides.

3. On you wife's computer go to Start> Devices and Printers and select your shared printer.

A couple of notes.
1. if you've enabled the firewall on mint you'll either have to make an exception for SAMBA or disable the firewall.
2. You can only share the printer if your computer is turned on.

[alligoodw]

Following your set of instructions have resulted in failure. My wife's laptop still doesn't recognize my laptop on the home network - my shared folders or my printer. My firewall is not enabled. Please advise. . .

[JasonLG]

Following your set of instructions have resulted in failure. My wife's laptop still doesn't recognize my laptop on the home network - my shared folders or my printer. My firewall is not enabled. Please advise. . .

Apparently Windows Essentials 2011 breaks SAMBA shares. Try the instructions on this site and see if fixes the problem.
http://aspiregemstone.blogspot.com/2010 ... samba.html