Linux in a Windows World

Delivering Printer Drivers to Windows Clients

One critically important part of Samba printer configuration is distributing drivers to Windows clients. This task can be accomplished in several different ways. One approach that requires little explanation is to use the driver CD-ROM that came with the printer (or a generic PostScript driver for Ghostscript-driven printers) to install the driver on all the clients. This approach is simple enough on a small network, but it becomes awkward when many clients are involved. For these cases, SMB/CIFS provides mechanisms to help deliver drivers to many clients, and Samba supports these mechanisms.

Warning

If you fail to configure Linux to deliver a Windows printer driver, Windows NT/200x/XP clients may display spurious “unable to connect” error messages. To avoid this problem, set use client driver = Yes. However, you should not use this option if you configure Linux to deliver printer drivers to Windows NT/200x/XP clients.

You can take a middle ground. Instead of using the semiautomated driver installation mechanisms described here, you can create an ordinary file share that holds the printer drivers. You can then install the drivers from that share on all the clients. This procedure obviates the need to carry a CD-ROM around from one computer to another, or to keep track of the CD-ROM for the benefit of computers you add after setting up the printer.

Picking a Driver

The first task you must undertake in driver installation is to select the ...