Hi,

We have a "home LAN" consisting mainly of my computer, running Linux
(Mandrake 9.0) and my wife's, running Win98. I'm sharing my LaserJet with
her using Samba, but we're thinking of getting an "all-in-one" for colour
printing and scanning.

Should we put it on the Win98 computer and share to the Linux box, or
on the Linux box and share to Win98? How well does Samba share USB
devices?

Lloyd Sumpter

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 11:27:56 -0800, "Lloyd Sumpter" <lsumpter@dccnet.com> wrote:

.... much of it may have to do with the device you choose. i have
a collegue that is using a one-in-all device, but it's like
those friggin brain-dead win-modems: this printer WILL NOT WORK
without the winders drivers. there ARE some of these that work
under Linux, but you'll have to check first
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends."

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 21:52:50 +0000, mjt wrote:

Thanks. I wish they'd tell us these things on the box. After all, they could
word it as a "feature" ("Improved design eliminates expensive CPU...").

From what I can see, there's a project (partly funded by HP?) that puts out
drivers for most of the HP all-in-ones.

So we're back to Question One: Linux as server or client?

Lloyd

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 18:35:23 -0800, "Lloyd Sumpter" <lsumpter@dccnet.com> wrote:


.... for me, both. and for MANY years!


the problem for most people is they're trapped in
that m$ mentality, which can be, at some times,
hard to divorce themselves from.


..... just like in life !
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
Great minds run in great circles.

mjt wrote:

Linux. You would be better using Windows to drive the scanner and
accessing it from Linux. There may be other considerations making it
preferable for Windows to be the client, but I don't have networking. And
yes, I did see a mention somewhere of the HP project being built into the
latest kernels.

Doug.
--
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and
hands.
- Robert M. Persig

Lloyd Sumpter wrote:
Assuming you get one that works well with Linux, you still have to be
sure that it can be printed to via the network...I've seen alot of
printers where this didn't work - They had to be connected locally. But
these were mainly of the very cheap, "Windows only" variety...So this
may not be an issue at all, just do your homework when choosing the printer.
In particular, make sure all functions are supported via the
network...For example, maybe you can print, but not scan. Actually, I'd
bet that's going to be the case...Is scanning from a network attached
device supported ? If not, which machine are you more likely to want to
scan from ?

But, assuming it will work over the network, it's been my experience
that printing from Windows to *nix is easier to set up, and more
reliable than the other way around.

As for your question about Samba and USB, the type of connection isn't
really related to Samba...As long as Linux can talk to the printer, and
it can be configured in whatever print daemon you're running, then it
can be shared via Samba.



--
- Matt -

Matt wrote:
If the printer is connected to a Linux machine, it should be shareable
over the network. The print spooler doesn't really care if the request
is local or over the network, AFAIK.

Again, it shouldn't matter. If you can scan locally in Linux, 'saned'
(part of the SANE scanner package) should get you running over the
network. (At least with another Linux client. Don't know about
Windows, but I don't see why not.) See the list of Windows front-ends
for SANE at:

http://www.sane-project.org/sane-frontends.html

In short, to the OP: get a printer/scanner that is supported by Linux
and you should have no trouble sharing it over the network with
Windows. Sharing a Windows-attached device is likely to be much
harder.

Personally I'd tend to favour one of the HP devices
(http://hpoj.sourceforge.net/suplist.shtml) since HP actually seems
interested in supporting Linux with (opensource) drivers for their
products.

NO. Matts got this all wrong for printing.

If you can get ghostscript to print to the printer, then you can set any
other computer up to print to it using a postscript driver. Because all the
linux programs expect this . They all produce postscript output, and let
ghostscript convert it, at the last moment, to be printed by a driver that
is interfaced with ghostscript.

And as for sharing a scanner device, no one has bothered to mention that
samba cant share out a scanner ? How is sharing a scanner meant to work ?

Does the windows allow the scanner to shared over a network by using it
like two way communications with a printer ?

Leon. wrote:
NO. I do not have this wrong...
There are numerous printers that only support being directly connected
to the pc. No network support at all. The *WINDOWS* drivers for those
printers DO NOT WORK unless the printer is directly attached to the pc
they are installed on. Can't comment on these printers going from Linux
to Windows as i haven't tried it.
As I said, this is with the cheap printers that are basically Windows
only. Don't believe me ? call HP support and ask about network support
for many of the cheap DJ series.
I've done it. Network printing on these devices is *NOT* supported.
Period. Some of the cheaper Canon's as well.

This is why it's important to do your homework when choosing a printer,
and when deciding how to connect it, to which machine.

In some cases, for *some* scanners, yes. but they tend to be higher end
products, and I don't know if it would work if they were attached to a
non-Windows machine.
Which is also why I suggested the OP check things out thoroughly.


--
- Matt -

Matt wrote:

As a follow up, I apologize...Your suggestion may work for *some*
printers like this. I took a look at :

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/...nprinters.html

I see what you're saying. However...This does not claim to work with
*all* "Windows" printers...And I doubt it will. Some of those things
are really just plain crap, and not worth the trouble.
As for the OP's question, these may or may not work on the new,
multi-function devices...No doubt some support will eventually be
available, but that doesn't mean it works currently.

Spending a little extra up front will most likely avoid these issues
anyway. And I stand by my statement that in general, printing from
Windows to Linux is generally easier and more reliable than the other
way around...



--
- Matt -

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 11:27:56 -0800, Lloyd Sumpter wrote:

Others have given you some good advice, but no-one has mentioned the
potential problems when printing from linux or another windows machine to
a printer shared over the network from a windows machine.

Unless things have changed in the last couple of years, windows does not
handle spooling well. The following is my own experience from 2 years ago.

At the request of a client and against my better judgement, I allowed said
client to talk me into mounting the printer onto his personal workstation
rather than the linux file server(I suppose he was just nosey).

I found that if the windows(win98 SE) machine was already printing when
it received a network print job from another linux or windows machine, the
current print job fell over and produced reams of rubbish in the out tray.
The only solution being to switch everything off.

The other way round with the printer mounted on the linux machine worked
perfectly.

It may be that I missed a trick somewhere, but I wasn't able to cure the
problem with the printer mounted on the windows machine.

Regards,
Dave

"Leon." wrote:
Scanner sharing has nothing to do with Samba and everything to do with
having SANE running on both Linux and Windows.

Thanks for all the input, guys - you were a BIG help!

Hadn't thought about the problems with using a scanner over the network -
I just thought "scanner, printer, same breed'o'dog, just different
direction..." but of course that's wrong. Probably the easiest would be to
put the scanner on the Linux box, log in from Windows remotely, do the
scan and put the resulting file in the shared directory.

As for printing, yes, I will be sticking to HP - they seem to "understand"
Linux and network printing. Unfortunately even HP doesn't mention Linux on
the boxes, etc. - often you have to take one home and set it up before
you find out if it will work (I find "compatibility lists" are not always
100% accurate, and require you to have a specific version of the driver,
etc.).

Again, thanks for the input!
Lloyd Sumpter