samba - May 2000 - Jet Direct Cards and Print sharing

I'm new to the list and I'm sorry if this question has been asked a
thousand
times I searched thru the database of the mailing list and seen other people
where having the same problem.. but didn't see a clean cut answer..

I have a Samba server running on Redhat 6.2 it runs perfect as a file server
to about 30 NT4/windows2000 computers.  It is also a Print server connected
to 3 plotters and a laser printer (all Jet Direct connected) works great
there also except for one thing.. when the plotters are currently busy
receiving a plot and someone tries to plot something elese there windows
will hang until the plotter has a chance to respond to the send.  I imagine
it's because it can only recieve one connection at a time and linux needs to
have a response from it in order to allow someone to plot..am I right in
thinking this? and is there a work around? or do I have something configured
wrong? any help would be appreciated.. I migrated to the samba setup from
Netware and I'm never looking back.. except people are starting to complain
about this nagging problem..

thanks for any help
John Kuhn

[John Kuhn <webmaster@mickalich.com>]
> I have a Samba server running on Redhat 6.2 it runs perfect as a file
> server to about 30 NT4/windows2000 computers.  It is also a Print
> server connected to 3 plotters and a laser printer (all Jet Direct
> connected) works great there also except for one thing.. when the
> plotters are currently busy receiving a plot and someone tries to
> plot something elese there windows will hang until the plotter has a
> chance to respond to the send.
While JetDirect cards and boxes (at least in my experience) can only
accept one TCP/IP connection at a time, either your Unix server or your
client machines' NT boxes should be able to queue print requests.

You will need to send some more information about your setup.  What
print subsystem are you using?  Debian Linux has at least three to
choose from (lpd, lprng, cups).  How is it configured?

One idea I have is that your NT box is querying for printer status, and
this causes your Linux server to query JetDirect, which like I said
can't handle multiple simultaneous TCP connections.  If that is the
case, you may be able to convince your printing subsystem not to do
that.  I had exactly this problem with JetDirect vs. AIX a couple years
ago, back before I ditched the AIX printing system in favor of LPRng.

Peter