Printing in Ubuntu

I had my linux laptop printing to my Brother MFC-210c printer, but since i've changed laptops and now finally got a dedicated linux machine, I wanted to setup a print server. First things first, get the printer to work with CUPS.

Followed instructions from this website:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=590793

Also very useful was Brother's linux support site (very happy that they're doing this! my next printer is probably going to be Brother too when this one fails!)

*http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html

*http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/instruction_prn1a.html#dpkg1

machine arch: intel p4 HT running ubuntu 8.10

(repeated below for local record)

* install tcsh:

sudo apt-get install tcsh

* download lpd and cups drivers (.dep packages)
from here and here

cd ~/temp/brother-driver
sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd
sudo dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc210clpr-1.0.2-1.i386.deb 
sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model
sudo dpkg -i --force-all cupswrapperMFC210C-1.0.2-3.i386.deb 

NB: replace above .deb package with appropriate ones if things change later.

check if the drivers were correctly installed:

 dpkg -l | grep --ignore-case brother

The above should generate an output that looks like below:

ii  brscan2                                    0.2.4                                                      Brother Scanner Driver
ii  cupswrappermfc210c                         1.0.2-3                                                    Brother MFC210C CUPS wrapper driver
ii  mfc210clpr                                 1.0.2-1                                                    Brother lpr Inkjet Printer Definitions

At this point, i was ready to print a test page. However going to System | Administration | Printing showed me two Brother MFC-210C printers. One was listed as a "text only printer", which I simply deleted (because it wasn't working to begin with). Check on the remaining icon that it is listed as "Brother MFC-210C CUPS v1.1" (right click, select Properties).

Print a test page!

Next step, getting the printer shared so that windows machines can print to it.

This needs samba installed and working, which i'm assuming is already done. if not, there's another page on this blog that should help you get up and running.

The following howto page is helpful

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Debian-and-Windows-Shared-Printing/sharing_with_windows.html

However, these throw open the system to all, so i decided to make some modifications

cd /etc/samba
sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf.master

add / modify the following section

[printers]
   comment = All Printers
   browseable = yes
   path = /var/spool/samba
   printable = yes
   guest ok = no
   read only = yes
   create mask = 0700
   use client driver = yes

restart samba

sudo testparm -s smb.conf.master > smb.conf
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Modify cups files

Windows printer drivers format their output for the printer before sending it across the network. You must configure CUPS to accept the pre-formatted output by uncommenting the following line from

sudo vi /etc/cups/mime.convs

application/octet-stream   application/vnd.cups-raw   0   -

Also uncomment the following line from

sudo /etc/cups/mime.types

application/octet-stream

Now CUPS must be told to allow connections from other machines on the network. Add these lines to /etc/cups/cupsd.conf:

 AuthType None
 Order Deny,Allow
 Deny From All
 Allow From 192.168.1.*/255.255.255.0

This allows only machines on the local network to access the cups driver.

restart the cups daemon

sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart