Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

I have a small home LAN. A Brother printer is connected to a XP Home. One of the PCs is a puppy(Lucid 5.2.8 ) With the help of the threads here I have managed to to get all the PCs to share files. The XPHome PC is set up to accept unix clients. The printer name is "Brother" which is different from the sharename, Macbeth(say). smbtree shows the printer as \\XPHome\Macbeth. I'm trying to add the printer via CUPS but I'm just not certain how to designate the connection given the choices below

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 10:12 Post subject:

There are two issues here: getting the correct network protocol and getting the appropriate printer driver.

1. Since your Connection list includes "Windows/Samba Printer", the correct protocol is

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

Thanks for the quick reply. My confusion arises because Windows says the printer name is Brother and the sharename is Macbeth. I would have expected smbtree to return \\XPHome\Brother (it uses backslashes) but it returns \\XPHome\Macbeth. The Windows machines all see the printer as Brother. I'll have a read of the threads you gave.
The model I own is the HL-2037, which is the black version of HL-2035

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 13:26 Post subject:

Type this command:

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

I get 3 columns Sharename, Type and Comment.- Macbeth, Printer and Brother. I downloaded the debbi pet and the cupswrapper.deb for the HL-2030 ( it said to use it for the HL-2035) and ran them both (debbi first). It said there are no menu entries for either so I don't know what to do next.

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 13:41 Post subject:

Run the CUPS setup wizard again. Now you should see an entry under Brother for the HL2030.

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

The Cups setup wizard takes me to a page with a lot of choices. The HL-2030 does not appear on the driver list. I tried the button "Find New Printers" - nothing found. The only printers on the printers tab are CUPS-PDF and PDF-Writer. Shall I add the network printer manually?

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 15:40 Post subject:

Just in case that the "debbi" installer method did not work for you, I have attached the HL2030 driver as a PET below.

Like I said above, Windows shared printers are not auto-detected. So here are the manual steps.

1. From the Connections list, choose Windows/Samba Printer.

2. For the URI, type in: smbw://XPHome/Macbeth
That's assuming that those are the correct names.

3. From the list of makes, select Brother.

4. From the list of models, select HL2030. It's farther down the list.

But I would recommend that you first connect the printer directly to your Puppy machine by USB and get it working. That will confirm that you have the correct driver.

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

Thanks for the driver. I printed a test page from the maintenance menu and it was perfect. Now I need to let all the editors know that they can print to the Brother. So far they will only offer a "print to file".

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 17:27 Post subject:

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

No, It isn't. CUPS's printer.conf lists all three printers - the Brother, Cups-PDF and PDF-writer - but all the editors only show a "Print to File" and the Location and Status tabs are "greyed" out.. I wonder where they are getting their info from if not from the CUPS printers.conf file.

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 18:14 Post subject:

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

The editors that I was referring to are Geany, Nicoedit and Abiword. I've tried rebooting but it made no difference. When you say a clean install I'm not sure how to proceed., especially the puppy pfix =ram bit.
You've really been most kind in helping me . I'm sorry that it is taking so much of your time.
PS. I've got a really bad cold and I'm off to bed now, but I expect to be back to the fray in the morning. (it's 10.30pm here).

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 03 Nov 2012, 20:20 Post subject:

Boot off your Lucid 528 Live CD. At the short initial pause, type "puppy pfix=ram". This will get you a temporary fresh install.

wimpy · Joined: 22 Aug 2012 Posts: 406 Location: Essex, UK

I did the clean install - this is being written from it. I downloaded and ran the samba-full-utility. I installed the Brother driver. I did run into a snag but I started the clean install again and this time it seems to be going through. Will keep you posted.
Update: I installed the printer and it now shows up on the text editors.