[Nottingham] samba printing 'funny'

david wolfson eaxdrw at nottingham.ac.uk
Wed Feb 2 12:27:10 GMT 2005


We have a samba print/file server in the office with two printers, and I 
thought I had this set up as well as it could be; acess to the printers 
was slow, but it worked and printer properties could be changed 
(eventually). But after a problem with someones machine (seemed to be 
caused by installing XP service pack 2...) I had another tinker, and a 
change in situation. By adding 'disable spoolss = yes' to [golbal] and 
use 'client driver = no' to [printers] things have got a lot faster. 
Where windows machines used to display the printers status's as 'unable 
to connect: access denied', one of them is now 'ready' and the print 
queue can be opened, and the other is 'opening...'.

There are however a couple of problems with this. The printer that is 
'opening...' (HP2300 laserjet), is the one used most.  The print queue 
for this can't be opened (it never could), but more importantly, the 
printer properties can't be opened either. As I say, it a lot faster 
print, but as these features seem to work on one printer, it frustrating 
that they don't work on both...

The (I think) relevant sections from smb.conf are:
 
[global]
    ...
        printcap name = /etc/printcap
        load printers = yes
        # added by DRW 01/02/05
        disable spoolss = yes
        printing = cups
    ...
 
[printers]
       comment = All Printers
       path = /var/spool/samba
       browseable = no
       printable = yes
       use client driver = no

Since the settings are for 'all printers' I can't see why one queue 
would behave differently from the other. Does this look like a samba 
thing, or do I need to start delving into cups? Any more ideas from 
other samba users would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,

Dave


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