Problems installing a printer for use with SAMBA

[garyc]

I am very new to Linux (4 weeks experience) and am trying to set-up a Windows PDC for a small network and one printer for a charity. All went well and after a couple of weeks I had my Samba server working and a week later it was communicating with the Win XP workstations. I got users set-up and able to logon with roaming profiles. Central shared filestore on non-system HDDs using RAID also went well - fantastic, thought I. So now to the printer, which I "borrowed" from the charity over Christmas as I knew it would not be needed over that time. And, hmm... not as easy as expected.

It didn't take long to get the Brother HL-1430 recognised on the USB connection and, using YaST, configured, though it seemed not to print any of the test pages. I think that was because the default paper size was A5, not A4, because once I set that I got some test prints.

I then turned to the XP machines and added the printer. All seemed to be going well. I sent a test print, could see it in XP and on the Linux box using KDE but nothing came out of the printer and I ended up removing the print job. Tried rebooting both boxed, turning printer on and off etc but all to no effect. At some point a windows test print came out but I cannot recall what I did or why that happened as, without making any other changes I could not do it again. Hmm...

Since then things have gone downhill. I can no longer get the printer to produce any output even though jobs get sent to it and appear in the queue. They just sit there until I delete them! I have removed the printer and reinstalled it, rebooted the box, left it a few days and done just about everything I can think of but nothing encourages the printer to actually send me any paper with nicew blck images/words on it! I have tried all 3 drivers in YaST and checked on some website to ensure teh printer is Linux supported, which it is.

I am beginning to wonder whether I have somehow deleted/overwritten or otherwise screwed part of my installation but before I do a fresh install of SUSE 10.2, can anyone help my learning curve?

Cheers

Gary

[Dapper Dan]

Hi garyc and welcome to the forum!

Just something to consider if you haven't already...

USB cables and even serial cables on printers can go bad for no apparent reason. I had a similar experience with a friend's HP and his FC3. Everything said the printer should work but it wouldn't print. Jobs would languish in the queue until deleted etc. After a week of pulling my hair out, I bought a new USB cable and everything now works perfectly.

[garyc]

Thanks Dapper Dan - a good tip. I tried a different cable but unfortunately no change. I also tried adding an Epson printer but cannot print from that either even though it is detected, shows up in KDE Prints and jobs go into the queue. Again, prints just sit there.

I went back to basics and installed my Brother printer again and suddenly I could print from the YaST test buttons but not applications like Firefox. Well, for a while anyway. I rebooted the box and then could not print. All very frutrating.

I decided on that 10.2 re-install, with printer connected from the start. All picked up nicely but when the install got to the final Hardware settings stage and I clicked on test for the printer nothing came out - naughty words...

Once 10.2 was back up and running I looked in KDE printers again and see that the "printer-state-message" says, Printer not connected, will retry in 30 seconds..." As the USB cable is connected there must be a problem elsewhere.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong/can try next?

Gary

[Dapper Dan]

It could also be the USB port. I've had them go wrong too. One on a brand new Dell gave me fits. I changed the cable to a different USB port and all is good now. I just can't think of anything else that would give such erratic and unpredictable behavior. Sorry I couldn't help more...

[garyc]

Thanks for trying/thinking. I'll try that and come back witht the outcome. On a positive note, at least it doesn't seem to be me totally screwing up Linux in some obvious way. Frustrating as problems like this might be that does offer a degree comfort...

Tahnks again.

Gary

[IrishW0lf]

Hi, I too, am having problems with the printer.

I have it connected through a Linksys Print Server being used by two networked computers. One is running WinXP that I have no problems with on the printing end. The second is running Open Linux 10.1.

The linux box sees the print server under SAMBA on the network and I have both Brother's printer driver for linux and its corresponding CUPS wrapper installed.

Problem is that when I try to send a test print to the printer from linux, I get one page with text on the top and then it just keeps printing blank pages (even on a one page document) until I kill the printer.

I tried re-installing the printer, with no luck, same problem.

Any suggestions, recomendations would be appreciated.

TIA, Bill...

[garyc]

That sounds to me like a driver issue but don't ask me which one??? As the XP box prints, I would guess that it is the Linux driver. I assume your Brother printer is compatible with Linux. From my reading up on the issues, the HL-1430 is fine but the 1435 is not. I am sure other printers in the range also suffer?

At risk of displaying fully my lack of knowledge on Linux, what is the CUPS wrapper? I know th CUPS bit but not what is meantby the wrapper.

Gary

[garyc]

Dapper Dan

Tried the other USB port without success. Makes me wonder, given my comnments above about CUPS wrappers, whether I am missing a step somewhere in the process. For one thing I get a 404 error message when I try to show localhost:631. Suggests to me that something is missing from CUPS/my installation.

All I have done to load the printer is use YaST following a standard install of 10.2. Do I need to do something else regaring CUPS?

Gary

[eshum]

This video tutorial might help http://showmedo.com/videos/video?nam...romSeriesID=19

just click on the lizard to watch.

ed

[garyc]

Dapper Dan

I have now tried attaching an old HP Laserjet6 to my test box (as the server now resides in its new home) which has a straight install of 10.2 on it. Within 5 minutes of booting I had it printing from Linux and from my Windows PC. Fantastic!

Apart from manufacturer a key difference is that the HP is a parallel only printer, whereas the Brother is parallel/USB and to date has been used as a parallel printer on the old system. So, my conclusion is that there is either a problem with the Brother print driver - unlikely, otherwise this forum would have something to say about that - or that the USB on the printer is dodgy.

I will now test the Brother with a parallel cable just to see if it works but given location of the linux server it is more for persoanl satisfaction than a realistic option for shared printing - just want to prove to myself what is wrong with that print set-up.

Thanks again for all your help - really is much appreciated.