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    Printer Sharing between Ubuntu and Vista

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by yin, Jul 28, 2007.

  1. yin

    yin Notebook Consultant

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    Hi linux experts, I'm a two-week old ubuntu feisty newbie, and I want to be able to print using a printer on my desktop, which runs Vista. The printer is a Brother MFC-4800 USB laser printer, the desktop is running Vista Ultimate, and my laptop is running Ubuntu Feisty.

    I googled around and tried some samba tutorials and what nots, but I got lost and my Ubuntu isn't recognizing my Windows computer. However, I can see stuff when I do

    Code: 
    smbclient -L <vista ip>
    <vista ip> is in the class of 192.168.x.x

    I believe I've got samba installed. I just don't know what to do after the installation, hehehehe.

    Any help greatly appreciated!

    yin
     
    yin, Jul 28, 2007
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  2. Lysander

    Lysander AFK, raid time.

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    in nautilus, look at "Go > Location" then type in smb://192.168.X.X and you should be looking at the shared Vista stuff. Drag and drop documents onto the printer icon to print them.

    That's what I do!
     
    Lysander, Jul 29, 2007
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  3. yin

    yin Notebook Consultant

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    Hm, that's interesting. I can't see my shared printer using this method...
     
    yin, Jul 29, 2007
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  4. Lysander

    Lysander AFK, raid time.

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    Do you have printer sharing enabled in Vista?
     
    Lysander, Jul 29, 2007
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  5. yin

    yin Notebook Consultant

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    Yes I do. Everything works perfectly when I use winXP. I can print from my laptop to the shared Vista printer. Just in ubuntu I can't seem to get it working.

    Btw, when I go to add a printer using System -> Administration -> Printing, I can get to the authentication for my workgroup and I can see the Vista computer name as well as the shared printer! But I click Forward and I have to select a driver, which I don't have. I have visited the Brother linux drivers site and tried installing their drivers, but no success. I guess I'm looking for a PPD file that's supposed to be a driver for the Brother MFC-4800 usb laser printer. Where would I find such a file?
     
    yin, Jul 29, 2007
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  6. yin

    yin Notebook Consultant

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    Well, good news guys! I've successfully printed a test page using the shared printer! Here's what I did: (Note: this is from a recent reformat)

    Looked at this site, did the appropriate configurations on my vista machine. Then, from my ubuntu machine, I installed cups and samba (well, cups came pre-installed). Then I went to localhost:631 and added the printer from there. I selected Windows Printer and set the Device URI to smb://192.168.26.102/brother4800 and selected the driver for the MFC-8300 that used the Foomatic/hl7x0. I didn't even download any drivers from the brother website! At least printing works now :D
     
    yin, Aug 9, 2007
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