Get the printer into the xbox then share it!

April 24, 2006 9:46 PM

Linux Printer Share: i'm way over my head, I have a HP 648c USB printer, and I want to use my xbox that runs Debian natively (Xebian) to share the printer. Physical connection is no problem. But I am in way over my head in terms of setting up a simple printer share. It appear possible via Samba, but my experiments didn't pan out.

Anyone?

posted by Napierzaza to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Hi Napierzaza,

You might want to look into CUPS - it's become the defacto *nix printing system now, and should easily let you share your printer with both other unix/linux boxes and windows and mac pc's. Getting drivers set up for certain printers can be a pain in the butt, but once you get everything running it's pretty rock solid.
posted by jba at 10:30 PM on April 24, 2006

ooh, i kinda missed the fact that you were using your xbox. (RIF). A non-x86 architecture majorly complicates things with cups as many of the drivers are built from windows x86 binaries. You still might be able to get basic print capabilities from the xbox with cups. It's still worth checking out.
posted by jba at 10:32 PM on April 24, 2006

jba Xbox is x86, xbox360 on the other hand, is PowerPC.

I've fled CUPS in terror on multiple occaisions. Good luck.
posted by Good Brain at 10:39 PM on April 24, 2006

er, thanks for the correction, good brain. I should have known/realized that. CUPS has gotten easier to manage in recent months/years, although its true that its still much easier to get it to talk to network printers than USB/Serial printers.

Napierzaza, not the answer you're looking for, but if you *really* need to get your printer up and running on the network without burning too many brain cycles, the HP jetdirect boxes are the easiest and best integrated print servers out there. Ethernet (or wireless for more $) in on one side and usb out the other.
posted by jba at 11:25 PM on April 24, 2006

Samba, by itself, won't drive a printer. You need a print management program.

If Xebian is mostly Debian, you should be able to install the CUPS package with apt-get install cupsys.

Once it's running, you should be able to connect to it on port 631. You will probably have to log in with your root password, so do this only on a trusted network.

Under Administration, go through Add New Printer, and tell it USB #1. Whether or not you choose a printer driver is up to you. If you choose RAW mode, then your clients have to have their own drivers for the printer. If you choose a print driver, then any of your clients can drive the printer with a Postscript driver.

Then try printing a test page. If it works, you're likely good to go. Samba should pick up the printer share automatically and share it for you. When you connect to the printer with a Windows client, install either the HP drivers (if you used RAW mode on your server) or Postscript drivers (if you chose another driver). RAW and HP drivers will be more likely to work 100% of the time from your clients, but it'll be hard to print from the server or other Linux clients. To get around this, you can simply share the same printer twice, once with each kind of driver. Connect Unixy clients to the Postscript version, and Windows clients to the RAW flavor.
posted by Malor at 3:46 AM on April 25, 2006

The trick with CUPS is that you have to just assume that everything is supposed to happen by magic. As soon as you find yourself fiddling with it, you're probably doing the Wrong Thing. If something doesn't happen by magic, stop and seek advice; trying to get your head around what's actually going on under that hood really is just plain scary.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 AM on April 25, 2006

Malos: Your directions are good but where am I doing the following?

"Under Administration, go through Add New Printer, and tell it USB #1. Whether or not you choose a printer driver is up to you. If you choose RAW mode, then your clients have to have their own drivers for the printer. If you choose a print driver, then any of your clients can drive the printer with a Postscript driver. "

Is that using CUPS setup? SAMBA? My desktop computer?
posted by Napierzaza at 7:26 AM on April 25, 2006

Is that using CUPS setup? SAMBA? My desktop computer?

Using a browser on your PC [either one may work]:
http://yourserverip:631/
http://yourserverip:631/admin/
posted by ajbattrick at 7:36 AM on April 25, 2006

The CUPS setup page.
posted by flabdablet at 7:37 AM on April 25, 2006

Whoa! That's available in OS X!
posted by Napierzaza at 10:47 AM on April 25, 2006

Crap, it says forbidden when I load at either 631 or 631/admin. I was just saying not found before I installed it so something did change!

I dunno what's going on here, I rebooted. Suggestions?
posted by Napierzaza at 3:15 PM on April 25, 2006

Got it, had to add my IP in /etc/cups/cups.conf

Bleh
posted by Napierzaza at 3:53 PM on April 25, 2006

Sorry I didn't check back until now, Napie.... you got it going?
posted by Malor at 10:07 PM on April 25, 2006