Printing to Win2K printer
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:13 am
Well I am defeated... been trying every which way I can think of to get this Turboprint to work but no joy.... I have installed TurboPrint on my SuSE11.0 system (the installation went far better that it did for me on SuSE10.3 where it utterly failed to even start. ) I have a Canon Pixma MP780 printer connected to a Win2K machine where it is shared to everyone. All my Windoz and Linux systems are on the same network/WORKGROUP. Other Windoz machines on my network have no problem printing to this printer. Now I need to get my Linux machines on my network to talk to the printer, which is where I was hoping TurboPrint would come to the rescue and make it nice an easy... No Such Luck!!!
I have tried to read the documentation till my head hurts. This is a freaking nightmare to understand - TurboPrint, CUPS, Samba, protocols, network login formats, yada yada yada. No where can I find a nice simple explanation of the underlying model of how all these layers work, what talks to what, and how the user can verify that things are working properly between all these layers, etc.. The TurboPrint console gui is just a basic data input interface and does NOT act as a guide helping me to find a solution, instead it expects me to be some kind of a guru on all this stuff I guess..
My best guess so far, when using the TurboPrint Control to add a new printer is to select "Windows network printer" for the Connection type. For Server I typed in both the name of my Win2K system and I also tried using its IP address.. Neither has worked so far... For Printer, I typed in the share name of the printer that I gave to it when I configured the printer to be shared and accessible to everyone. I filled in the Workgroup with the name of my Windoz workgroup... For Name and Password I have tried just about every combination of a name and password (local linux user names and passwords, Win2K user names and passwords, no user name, user names with no passwords. etc.. Nadda nothing.. I even tried to guess at and use Windoz network naming conventions like //servername/username but I really have no idea what the format should be, if this is what is required...
In all these cases I have hit the "Test Server Connection" button and it always comes back and says it succeeded! Succeeded at WHAT??? Whatever that button is testing is neither clear nor apparently a very good test because I sure don't get any printer output when I later try to print something.. All it reports is the print servers IP address and that it successfully connected to port. WHAT port? Outgoing port on my Linux system? Incoming port on the Win2K machine? What does it mean by this message? I dunno, can't find it documented anywhere.... Did it actually "log" in with my User name and password and talk to the printer server on the Win2K box? I dunno.... again no documentation...
The rest of the Add Printer setup seems to go fairly well, I can find and add the proper printer etc.. but when it asks me to print a test page nothing happens... And nothing guides me to what might have gone wrong... It doesn't even ask me if it succeeded or not in printing that test page... Ditto for the Toolbox "Print Test Page"...
Like I said, I can find no documentation describing the model behind Turboprint so I have no idea what other components of the system it is dependent on or what to look for/test. For example, does this need CUPS to accomplish what I want? If so, how do I configure CUPS to talk to the printer server on the Win2K box? To TurboPrint? How do I test that this connection between CUPS and Turboprint is working correctly? There is no documentation describing any of this, that I could find. I fooled around with CUPS some but it is a far worse nightmare to understand so I gave up... If I really do need it I will go back and play with it some more...
What is really damn confusing about the relationship between CUPS and TurboPrint, is that CUPS seems to know about the TurboPrint name - tp0 - that TurboPrint gave for this printer. When I bring up the CUPS configuration GUI, tp0 is listed as one of the possible printers to use, so that leads me to believe that CUPS is dependent on TurboPrint. But when I do something like click on the "Accept Jobs" button in the TurboPrint Printer Monitor I get asked for the CUPS password. So is TurboPrint dependent on CUPS or is CUPS dependent on TurboPrint? And why? I dunno... no documentation...
Like a lot of application GUIs today this one does a fine job (I am guessing) on gathering the data that it needs from a user. But like most application GUI's it fails miserably at teaching and guiding the user towards finding a successful solution. And worse it expects the user to have a great deal of technical knowledge about all these tools, protocols, layers etc. That is ALWAYS a sign of a poorly designed user interface and one that has not been well tested with real world users...
You may argue that you have had a lot of users successfully use this product, but I will counter that I didn't read anywhere that I needed to be a Linux internals guru to use this product! Anywise I am quite frustrated with it now so am in need of help to get this going...
I have included my latest state of turboprint.cfg file, as generated by TurboPrint Control, with sensitive info removed, if that helps.. (It has gone through a LOT of permutations! including things like hand editing it, guessing that some parts seems likely to be wrong.. Devicename for example... seems odd that it is referring to a local device and not something on the network.. or RemoteIP and RemoteURI also seems odd to be an empty string... I tried filling in with values/guesses, again no documentation... but no joy... And I have no idea how to set these via TurboPrint Control, if indeed they should be set to something...
Darkstar..
[Turboprint_Config_File]
[turbo2]
Default=0
Name="Canon_PIXMA_MP780"
Short="tp0"
Port="smb"
Devicename="/dev/lp0"
Filename="/tmp/turboprint.prn"
Remoteprinter="Canon"
Remoteserver="MyServersName"
Remoteuser="MyName"
Remotepassword="MYEncryptedPassword"
Remoteworkgroup="MyWorkGroupName"
Remoteip=""
Remotesocket=""
Remoteuri=""
Driver="Canon_PIXMA_MP780"
Colormode=2
Preview=0
Cartridge=0
Paper=0
Quality=1
Pagesize=4
Borderlessexpand=2
Customsize=5000,7000
Feed=0
Tray=0
Duplex=0,0,0
Copies=1
Dithering=0
Truematch=1
Mirror=0
Usercolor=0
Brightness=0
Contrast=0
Screengamma=180
Inkvolume=0
Colorsaturation=0
Intensity_KCMY=0,0,0,0
Limit_KCMY=0,0,0,0
Inklimit=0
Bright_KCMY=0,0,0,0
UCR=0
TAC=0
Colorspace=0
CMYKspace=0
Intent=1
Greytone_AB=0,0
RefLight=6500
GS_X_Scale=100
GS_Y_Scale=100
GS_X_Offset=0
GS_Y_Offset=0
GS_Screen_Lpi=0
GS_Buffer=0
PIC_Ignore_Margins=0
PIC_Position=0,0
PIC_Size=7000,0
PIC_Center=1,1
PIC_Aspect=1
A2PS_Defaults=0
A2PS_Landscape=0
A2PS_Borders=1
A2PS_Headers=1
A2PS_Columns=1
Landscape=0
Number_Up=1
Image_X=1
Image_Y=1
Image_Scaling=100
Use_Image_Scaling=0
Image_DPI=300
Use_Image_DPI=0
Text_CPI=10
Text_LPI=6
Pretty_Print=0
Settings=
I have tried to read the documentation till my head hurts. This is a freaking nightmare to understand - TurboPrint, CUPS, Samba, protocols, network login formats, yada yada yada. No where can I find a nice simple explanation of the underlying model of how all these layers work, what talks to what, and how the user can verify that things are working properly between all these layers, etc.. The TurboPrint console gui is just a basic data input interface and does NOT act as a guide helping me to find a solution, instead it expects me to be some kind of a guru on all this stuff I guess..
My best guess so far, when using the TurboPrint Control to add a new printer is to select "Windows network printer" for the Connection type. For Server I typed in both the name of my Win2K system and I also tried using its IP address.. Neither has worked so far... For Printer, I typed in the share name of the printer that I gave to it when I configured the printer to be shared and accessible to everyone. I filled in the Workgroup with the name of my Windoz workgroup... For Name and Password I have tried just about every combination of a name and password (local linux user names and passwords, Win2K user names and passwords, no user name, user names with no passwords. etc.. Nadda nothing.. I even tried to guess at and use Windoz network naming conventions like //servername/username but I really have no idea what the format should be, if this is what is required...
In all these cases I have hit the "Test Server Connection" button and it always comes back and says it succeeded! Succeeded at WHAT??? Whatever that button is testing is neither clear nor apparently a very good test because I sure don't get any printer output when I later try to print something.. All it reports is the print servers IP address and that it successfully connected to port. WHAT port? Outgoing port on my Linux system? Incoming port on the Win2K machine? What does it mean by this message? I dunno, can't find it documented anywhere.... Did it actually "log" in with my User name and password and talk to the printer server on the Win2K box? I dunno.... again no documentation...
The rest of the Add Printer setup seems to go fairly well, I can find and add the proper printer etc.. but when it asks me to print a test page nothing happens... And nothing guides me to what might have gone wrong... It doesn't even ask me if it succeeded or not in printing that test page... Ditto for the Toolbox "Print Test Page"...
Like I said, I can find no documentation describing the model behind Turboprint so I have no idea what other components of the system it is dependent on or what to look for/test. For example, does this need CUPS to accomplish what I want? If so, how do I configure CUPS to talk to the printer server on the Win2K box? To TurboPrint? How do I test that this connection between CUPS and Turboprint is working correctly? There is no documentation describing any of this, that I could find. I fooled around with CUPS some but it is a far worse nightmare to understand so I gave up... If I really do need it I will go back and play with it some more...
What is really damn confusing about the relationship between CUPS and TurboPrint, is that CUPS seems to know about the TurboPrint name - tp0 - that TurboPrint gave for this printer. When I bring up the CUPS configuration GUI, tp0 is listed as one of the possible printers to use, so that leads me to believe that CUPS is dependent on TurboPrint. But when I do something like click on the "Accept Jobs" button in the TurboPrint Printer Monitor I get asked for the CUPS password. So is TurboPrint dependent on CUPS or is CUPS dependent on TurboPrint? And why? I dunno... no documentation...
Like a lot of application GUIs today this one does a fine job (I am guessing) on gathering the data that it needs from a user. But like most application GUI's it fails miserably at teaching and guiding the user towards finding a successful solution. And worse it expects the user to have a great deal of technical knowledge about all these tools, protocols, layers etc. That is ALWAYS a sign of a poorly designed user interface and one that has not been well tested with real world users...
You may argue that you have had a lot of users successfully use this product, but I will counter that I didn't read anywhere that I needed to be a Linux internals guru to use this product! Anywise I am quite frustrated with it now so am in need of help to get this going...
I have included my latest state of turboprint.cfg file, as generated by TurboPrint Control, with sensitive info removed, if that helps.. (It has gone through a LOT of permutations! including things like hand editing it, guessing that some parts seems likely to be wrong.. Devicename for example... seems odd that it is referring to a local device and not something on the network.. or RemoteIP and RemoteURI also seems odd to be an empty string... I tried filling in with values/guesses, again no documentation... but no joy... And I have no idea how to set these via TurboPrint Control, if indeed they should be set to something...
Darkstar..
[Turboprint_Config_File]
[turbo2]
Default=0
Name="Canon_PIXMA_MP780"
Short="tp0"
Port="smb"
Devicename="/dev/lp0"
Filename="/tmp/turboprint.prn"
Remoteprinter="Canon"
Remoteserver="MyServersName"
Remoteuser="MyName"
Remotepassword="MYEncryptedPassword"
Remoteworkgroup="MyWorkGroupName"
Remoteip=""
Remotesocket=""
Remoteuri=""
Driver="Canon_PIXMA_MP780"
Colormode=2
Preview=0
Cartridge=0
Paper=0
Quality=1
Pagesize=4
Borderlessexpand=2
Customsize=5000,7000
Feed=0
Tray=0
Duplex=0,0,0
Copies=1
Dithering=0
Truematch=1
Mirror=0
Usercolor=0
Brightness=0
Contrast=0
Screengamma=180
Inkvolume=0
Colorsaturation=0
Intensity_KCMY=0,0,0,0
Limit_KCMY=0,0,0,0
Inklimit=0
Bright_KCMY=0,0,0,0
UCR=0
TAC=0
Colorspace=0
CMYKspace=0
Intent=1
Greytone_AB=0,0
RefLight=6500
GS_X_Scale=100
GS_Y_Scale=100
GS_X_Offset=0
GS_Y_Offset=0
GS_Screen_Lpi=0
GS_Buffer=0
PIC_Ignore_Margins=0
PIC_Position=0,0
PIC_Size=7000,0
PIC_Center=1,1
PIC_Aspect=1
A2PS_Defaults=0
A2PS_Landscape=0
A2PS_Borders=1
A2PS_Headers=1
A2PS_Columns=1
Landscape=0
Number_Up=1
Image_X=1
Image_Y=1
Image_Scaling=100
Use_Image_Scaling=0
Image_DPI=300
Use_Image_DPI=0
Text_CPI=10
Text_LPI=6
Pretty_Print=0
Settings=