Could I get some opinions on which type of Samba based printing is easier, CUPS or LPRNG, or just bybass Samba altogether. I'm looking at the Printing HOWTO by Kurt Pfeifle (Printing Support in Samba 3.0) and both look really complex. Anyone out there have any experience with printing services in Samba? Should I just stay away from samba printing and go direct to Network printers? What are the advantages of a samba print server as opposed to installing printer drivers on the client and printing to a network printer? Any opinions are appreciated Regards DSP
On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Douglas Phillipson wrote:> Could I get some opinions on which type of Samba based printing is > easier, CUPS or LPRNG, or just bybass Samba altogether. I'm looking at > the Printing HOWTO by Kurt Pfeifle (Printing Support in Samba 3.0) and > both look really complex. Anyone out there have any experience with > printing services in Samba? Should I just stay away from samba printing > and go direct to Network printers?Best is to use network printers, but have your samba server do all the spooling. If you have each client print directly to a network attached printer you will get lots of network traffic at times ot printer congestion.> What are the advantages of a samba print server as opposed to installing > printer drivers on the client and printing to a network printer? > > Any opinions are appreciatedTo a bushman from the heart of the jungle, driving and automatic car is VERY complex. Do you find it complex? Maybe you have learned enough that it no longer seems anywhere near as daunting. I prefer CUPS! It is really easy to configure. Takes very little imagination. Can be made as complex as you want. The easiest configuration is to use raw print-through. 1. Edit /etc/cups/mime.convs and uncomment the line at the end of the file that has: #application/octet-.... 2. Do the same for /etc/cups/mime.types. 3. Add a raw more printer using the Web interface. Point your browser at http://localhost:631, enter Adminstration, add the printer. Do NOT install any drivers for it. Choose RAW. Choose queue name "Raw Queue". 4. In the samba [printers] section add: use client drivers = Yes In your [globals] section add: printing = CUPS printcap = CUPS Now just install printers on your windows machine as if they are a local printer. Then edit the configuration, in the"Detail" tab, set a local port pointing at your samba server: \\server\raw_q_name Where raw_q_name is the name you gave this raw queue in CUPS. This should work every times. PS: It is documented in the HOWTO (if you can find it!). :) - John T. -- John H Terpstra Email: jht@samba.org
On Thursday 06 November 2003 15:55, Douglas Phillipson wrote:> Could I get some opinions on which type of Samba based printing is > easier, CUPS or LPRNG, or just bybass Samba altogether.Once you understand any of the systems none are all that difficult. With Samba in the loop as a PDC it's like having an NT domain controller where the printer drivers can be automatically downloaded eliminating running around to every system to install/update the drivers manually. CUPS is the "new, modern" UNIX printing subsystem. LPRNG will work just fine as well. If you don't know either than CUPS should probably garner your attention first.> Should I just stay away from samba printing > and go direct to Network printers?If your network printers have disk drives and can spool jobs you can do that, otherwise you may run into some contention issues.> What are the advantages of a samba > print server as opposed to installing printer drivers on the client and > printing to a network printer?Auto driver download is probably the most beneficial for keeping Samba in the loop. If this isn't important for you you can bypass Samba and print directly to LPRNG or CUPS (as opposed to directly printing to a non-spooling network printer) acting as the print server (a "real" one - that spools and schedules). CUPS offeres the most flexibility as you can print via IPP, with LPRNG you'll probably be limited to LPR. -- Chris Do not reply to the phony return email address. Please use the contact page below for any desired direct replies. Apologies for the inconvenience. realcomputerguy dot com slash contact dot html
I serve about 50 printers via Samba. Here are my experiences - LPRng - This backend I have found to be much stronger than CUPS, but I didn't use it for any server side processing. All drivers had to be installed from some other workstation. In my case, installing drivers for all OS's would only work from an XP machine, not Win2K. Otherwise, this worked very well. CUPS- I migrated to ESP PrintPro about 3 months ago. PrintPro made obtaining all the correct drivers and backends much simpler (there is only one, instead of CUPS + ESP GS + cupsomatic + HPIJS + etc,etc...). It seems to provide better naming of the jobs, displays user name and job on the printer display menu when printing, and can add printers via the cusaddsmb feature, which works A LOT better for remote site management. Plus there is the web based printer administration, and with ESP there is a GUI app that works pretty well. CUPS was easier to load balance amongst servers as well. On new printers, the jobs seem to process faster than with LPRng also. We have several HP 4300/4200 series printers that start printing instantaneously, even during high traffic periods. Overall, Linux print servers have kicked the snot out of NT print servers, and CUPS is much nicer and more complete to work with than LPRng. Installing print drivers locally becomes unsustainable if you have any significant number of users or printers. My thoughts would be to stay well clear of this. Your mileage may vary. -Chris On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 15:55, Douglas Phillipson wrote:> Could I get some opinions on which type of Samba based printing is > easier, CUPS or LPRNG, or just bybass Samba altogether. I'm looking at > the Printing HOWTO by Kurt Pfeifle (Printing Support in Samba 3.0) and > both look really complex. Anyone out there have any experience with > printing services in Samba? Should I just stay away from samba printing > and go direct to Network printers? What are the advantages of a samba > print server as opposed to installing printer drivers on the client and > printing to a network printer? > > Any opinions are appreciated > > Regards > > DSP--