Next Previous Contents

3. Configuring the Printing Clients.

3.1 Setting up Printing from a Windows Client.

Open the Settings/Printers folder, and start the Add Printer Wizard. Choose to add a Network Printer, and browse the network to find the Printer Shares you configured on the host (e.g., HP722C-PPA and HP722C-PS). If they are not visible, either the Host or the network is not properly configured. Correct the problem before proceding.

Normally, you will probably want to use the native Windows HP PPA drivers, so select the printer Share that accepts PPA input (e.g., HP722C-PPA). If the Host is a Windows Host, it will provide the drivers over the network, otherwise you will have to find the printer in the list of available HP Printer drivers, or click on Have Disk and install them from HP's installation CD. You then get a chance to change the name with which the printer will be known on the Client. Finally, you should choose to print a test page.

You might instead (or also) want to set up printing services using the Printer Share that accepts Postscript (e.g., HP722C-PS). In that case, if the Host is not a Windows Host, choose a "generic" PostScript printer like the Apple LaserWriter II NT or the Digital turboPrintServer 20/Net.

If the test page prints sucessfully, you are finished!

3.2 Setting up Printing from a Linux/Unix Samba Client

First examine the network by opening a terminal window and using the command

smbclient -L hostname
(where "hostname" should be replaced by the network name of the Host to which the printer is attached). This will list the SMB services provided by that Host. (Alternatively, your system may have some graphical front-end to smbclient that allows you to inspect the network.) The list should include the Printer Share(s) you configured on the Host (e.g., HP722C-PPA and HP722C-PS). If these are absent, you must first identify and correct the problem.

You must now configure the printer. The details of how to do this will vary between Linux/Unix distributions, but there will probably be support for network printing using Samba.

If the Printer Share you wish to use is intended to accept PPA input (e.g., HP722C-PPA), configure the Client to use the pnm2ppa driver.

If it is intended to accept PostScript input (e.g., HP722C-PS), configure the Client to print to a PostScript printer.

You may wish to configure both types of printers, and experiment to see which provides the best printing services on your network.

See the SMB-HOWTO documentation for more information.


Next Previous Contents