Adding a network printer

[toothandnail]

  Really showing my ignorance here.

Up till now, I've not done much with printing under Linux, at least not for my own home system. The printer I use (Brother HL-5050 mono laser) was attached to an OS/2 machine, and I used to do all my printing on it.

However, my one remaining OS/2 machine is currently offline. I'm setting up an Amahi home server, partially because it could be useful for a customer and partially because I can see it helping to rationalise my own home network. I've got the printer attached to it, and I can print from Windows (its shared as a Samba share by Amahi).

I've got two problems. One, I have no idea how to add it to Vector - do I use CUPS (and if so, how do I specify the printer path), or do I add it through Samba? The second problem being that I currently can't access Swat - when I select it from VasmCC, it opens Seamonkey and I then get a 'failed to connect" error. To be precise, as below:

Code:

The connection was refused when attempting to contact 127.0.0.1:901.

I seem to remember seeing that sort of error during the VL 6.0 Standard beta, but I thought it had been fixed, and I don't remember the fix anyway...

Suggestions welcome - what is the best way to get my VL Standard install to see the remote printer?

Paul.

[Daniel]

Using Samba from VasmCC goes to http://localhost:631 (which often fails). Try manually going to http://localhost:631/admin

[newt]

do I use CUPS (and if so, how do I specify the printer path), or do I add it through Samba?

My understanding is that your Avahi Samba simply makes the printer an available option for cups, therefore on your VL machine you would simply add a networked printer via cups using the method Daniel mentioned (localhost:631).

The second problem being that I currently can't access Swat - when I select it from VasmCC, it opens Seamonkey and I then get a 'failed to connect" error. To be precise, as below:

Code:

The connection was refused when attempting to contact 127.0.0.1:901.

swat is a samba admin tool for the local machine. Since you don't need to modify your local samba settings to access your networked printer then you shouldn't need to change any samba settings, therefore no need to access swat.

Hope this helps

[toothandnail]

Using Samba from VasmCC goes to http://localhost:631 (which often fails). Try manually going to http://localhost:631/admin

Thanks. Found part of the problem.  I could have sworn that I'd set Cups to start. But.....

I've now got cups up and running, but so far, I've not been able to print anything. The message from cups is that 'hda' is busy. I suspect that I'm not properly logged in, but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it. I guess its time to do some reading...

Paul.

[toothandnail]

do I use CUPS (and if so, how do I specify the printer path), or do I add it through Samba?

My understanding is that your Avahi Samba simply makes the printer an available option for cups, therefore on your VL machine you would simply add a networked printer via cups using the method Daniel mentioned (localhost:631).

Thanks, I seem to have got that far, once I actually had Cups running.

The second problem being that I currently can't access Swat - when I select it from VasmCC, it opens Seamonkey and I then get a 'failed to connect" error. To be precise, as below:

Code:

The connection was refused when attempting to contact 127.0.0.1:901.

swat is a samba admin tool for the local machine. Since you don't need to modify your local samba settings to access your networked printer then you shouldn't need to change any samba settings, therefore no need to access swat.

Hope this helps

Looks correct.

At the moment, I'm getting errors trying to access the printer. I suspect that I need to log into the Amahi box somehow, but I'm not at all sure how.

This is the error:

Code:

"recoverable: Network host 'HDA' is busy; will retry in 30 seconds..."
Description: Brother Laser
Location: \\HDA\HL-5050-series
Printer Driver: Brother HL-5050 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.4
Printer State: processing, accepting jobs, published.
Device URI: http://HDA/HL-5050-series

I can access the Amahi box - easy enough to SSH in, and shares are available. So far, the printer seems to be a little further than I can get....

Any further suggestions gratefully accepted.

Paul.

[toothandnail]

Right, figured it out. The Cups docs aren't much help in this area, but I experimented a bit.

The trick was to change the address to this form:

Code:

smb://HDA/HL-5050-series

I had to use smbtree to find the printer name on the Amahi server.

It is now printing, which is great. I'll have to find out whether Amahi supports more normal Linux printing, but I can live with Samba for the moment. I've also got to enable NFS on the Amahi box, but that may take a bit more familiarity with Fedora than I currently have (the Amahi HDA sits on top of Fedora 12).

Thanks for all the help....

Paul.
 

[newt]

Also check out the following page (it gives a little more detail into Device URIs): http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/network_administration_guides/samba_reference_guide/29_CUPS-printing_45.html

[toothandnail]

Also check out the following page (it gives a little more detail into Device URIs): http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/network_administration_guides/samba_reference_guide/29_CUPS-printing_45.html

Thanks! That's a useful reference.

Paul.