Samba advice

Samba advice

[Tony Gogoi]

Hello,

I have read about the virtues of Samba and am interested in migrating to
that.

I was just curious if there can be windows print or file sharing problems
if the printers (including color printer) are managed by linux.

Or would it be better to install printers on an unused Windows workgroup
PC instead ?

Thanks,
Tony

Re: Samba advice

[Adam Lang]

I never had issues with using samba for print sharing.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Gogoi" <tgogoi@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
To: <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 2:28 PM
Subject: Samba advice


> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have read about the virtues of Samba and am interested in migrating to
> that.
> 
> I was just curious if there can be windows print or file sharing problems
> if the printers (including color printer) are managed by linux.
> 
> Or would it be better to install printers on an unused Windows workgroup
> PC instead ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tony
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Samba advice

[Mauricio Silveira]

Tony,

The windows workstations simply send a pre-formatted file to the samba 
server, samba simply sends this "ready-and-formatted " file from the 
windows boxes and sends them to the printer.

No matter what printer you connect to a linux box running a samba 
server, all the windows workstations will print to the samba server as 
far as the drivers on each windows WS are correctly installed and 
configured. You may even make a copy of the newest driver to the samba 
server and setup it to offer these drivers automatically to the clients.

Read the samba documentation, read the "Using Samba" and "The Samba 
HOWTO Collection", they are all available freely from samba website 
(www.samba.org) and have fun :)


Best regards,
Mauricio


Tony Gogoi wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I have read about the virtues of Samba and am interested in migrating to
>that.
>
>I was just curious if there can be windows print or file sharing problems
>if the printers (including color printer) are managed by linux.
>
>Or would it be better to install printers on an unused Windows workgroup
>PC instead ?
>
>Thanks,
>Tony
>
>
>
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>
>  
>

Re: Samba advice

[Tony Gogoi]

Thanks Mauricio, and another question :-)
>
> No matter what printer you connect to a linux box running a samba
> server, all the windows workstations will print to the samba server as
> far as the drivers on each windows WS are correctly installed and
> configured. You may even make a copy of the newest driver to the samba
> server and setup it to offer these drivers automatically to the clients.
>
Why would a printer driver need to be installed on each Windows client ?
If a printer is installed and configured on Linux from the available Linux
printer drivers, will the performance of the printer be at least equal to
going the windows printer-driver way on each client?

Re: Samba advice

[Adam Lang]

that's not how printing works.

The desktop, no matter what OS, uses drivers to transform print into
language that the printer understands.  Print servers merely offer the
printers as a share for spooling and pass the data off to the printer.

Think of the print server as the phone company.  The phone company will let
you contact someone in France, but you still need to know the language to
speak to them.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Gogoi" <tgogoi@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
To: "Mauricio Silveira" <msilveira@linuxbr.com>
Cc: <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: Samba advice


> Thanks Mauricio, and another question :-)
> >
> > No matter what printer you connect to a linux box running a samba
> > server, all the windows workstations will print to the samba server as
> > far as the drivers on each windows WS are correctly installed and
> > configured. You may even make a copy of the newest driver to the samba
> > server and setup it to offer these drivers automatically to the clients.
> >
> Why would a printer driver need to be installed on each Windows client ?
> If a printer is installed and configured on Linux from the available Linux
> printer drivers, will the performance of the printer be at least equal to
> going the windows printer-driver way on each client?
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Samba advice

[Dmitry Ivanov]

On Tue, May 25, 2004 at 12:02:22PM -0400, Adam Lang wrote:
> Print servers merely offer the
> printers as a share for spooling and pass the data off to the printer.

Not exactly. Windows clients can send PostScript data to
server. If printer is PS-capable then server can send data directly
to the printer. Most printers are not, and server has to interpret PS
itself.

I prefer to rasterize PS _always_ with Ghostscript.
It takes significant amount of server CPU cycles but makes results
much predictable with any printers. 

IMHO, the best printing scheme is:
1) Windows clients have PS-drivers installed (i.e. Apple LaserWriter)
2) Linux server has Ghostscript installed
3) Almost any printer can be attached to Linux server.

Note that Windows clients don't even know which printer is
actually used. Any correct A4 or smaller PS (or PDF) is OK.
The only drawback is that you need powerful CPU for printing.
It takes ~5 min. to print some complex diagrams and graphs
on my Celeron 566 :)

-- 
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.

Re: Samba advice

[Adam Lang]

In my opinion, that makes the scenario more complicated than it needs to be.
I will admit though it would seem to eliminate the need to install different
drivers for each printer, but that is only good if you have basic printers.
What if you have duplexers or color or multiple trays or envelope feeds,
etc.  Using a basic PS driver loses you all that functionality.

So, that scheme you have is only good if you have a black and white printer
with one output and one tray, otherwise, you have to have the client drivers
installed on the desktop.  So, there is a lot more of a drawback than just
CPU power.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dmitry Ivanov" <dimss@solutions.lv>
To: <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Samba advice


> Not exactly. Windows clients can send PostScript data to
> server. If printer is PS-capable then server can send data directly
> to the printer. Most printers are not, and server has to interpret PS
> itself.
>
> I prefer to rasterize PS _always_ with Ghostscript.
> It takes significant amount of server CPU cycles but makes results
> much predictable with any printers.
>
> IMHO, the best printing scheme is:
> 1) Windows clients have PS-drivers installed (i.e. Apple LaserWriter)
> 2) Linux server has Ghostscript installed
> 3) Almost any printer can be attached to Linux server.
>
> Note that Windows clients don't even know which printer is
> actually used. Any correct A4 or smaller PS (or PDF) is OK.
> The only drawback is that you need powerful CPU for printing.
> It takes ~5 min. to print some complex diagrams and graphs
> on my Celeron 566 :)
>
> -- 
> I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Samba advice

[Tony Gogoi]

> that's not how printing works.
>
> The desktop, no matter what OS, uses drivers to transform print into
> language that the printer understands.  Print servers merely offer the
> printers as a share for spooling and pass the data off to the printer.
>
So, if the printer driver is installed on a Linux print server and a
windows client wants to print a colorful word document, there shouldn't be
any problems as the windows client sends the data to be printed in a
format the linux printer driver understands ??????

Re: Samba advice

[Adam Lang]

No.  Unless the linux server is going to be printing itself, you don't need
any drivers installed.  The drivers are loaded on the desktop.

Ok, let's assume you have an HP printer with a jet direct card.  Now, You
can have your desktops print directly to it.  You really have no unified
control over the spool or security permissions.  Alos, if traffic gets
heavy, you can experience time out issues as the jetdirect card can only
spool so much itself.

Now, if you add a print server, the desktops send their print to the print
server, it handles spooling and security and then it passes off the jobs to
the printer as logn as it is willign to take them.  The samba server doesn't
do any data transformation.  It is jsut a gateway.

The print drivers on the windows desktop take your Word document and change
it into the printer language your printer understands.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Gogoi" <tgogoi@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
To: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>
Cc: <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: Samba advice


> >
> So, if the printer driver is installed on a Linux print server and a
> windows client wants to print a colorful word document, there shouldn't be
> any problems as the windows client sends the data to be printed in a
> format the linux printer driver understands ??????

Re: Samba advice

[Chris DiTrani]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Gogoi" <tgogoi@cse.Buffalo.EDU>


>
> > that's not how printing works.
> >
> > The desktop, no matter what OS, uses drivers to transform print into
> > language that the printer understands.  Print servers merely offer the
> > printers as a share for spooling and pass the data off to the printer.
> >
> So, if the printer driver is installed on a Linux print server and a
> windows client wants to print a colorful word document, there shouldn't be
> any problems as the windows client sends the data to be printed in a
> format the linux printer driver understands ??????


The the linux print server in this mode is just a pass-thru to the printer,
providing queueing and not much more. You can almost think of the linux
print server as part of the cable between the windows boxes and the printer.
The linux print server doesn't really care what printer it's connected to -
it's just passing data through from a windows box that used the correct
printer-specific driver to format the data.

You can install the windows driver for you printer on the linux server and
samba will allow users on windows boxes to load it when they connect to the
shared printer, but linux isn't using that driver to talk to the printer.

CD

Re: Samba advice

[Mauricio Silveira]

BTW....


I encourage everyone to use cups as the printing method for samba, a 
cups implementation is very much more functional than an old LPR based 
method under samba.


Mauricio Silveira
FSN do Brasil

Chris DiTrani wrote:

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Tony Gogoi" <tgogoi@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
>
>  
>
>>>that's not how printing works.
>>>
>>>The desktop, no matter what OS, uses drivers to transform print into
>>>language that the printer understands.  Print servers merely offer the
>>>printers as a share for spooling and pass the data off to the printer.
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>So, if the printer driver is installed on a Linux print server and a
>>windows client wants to print a colorful word document, there shouldn't be
>>any problems as the windows client sends the data to be printed in a
>>format the linux printer driver understands ??????
>>    
>>
>
>
>The the linux print server in this mode is just a pass-thru to the printer,
>providing queueing and not much more. You can almost think of the linux
>print server as part of the cable between the windows boxes and the printer.
>The linux print server doesn't really care what printer it's connected to -
>it's just passing data through from a windows box that used the correct
>printer-specific driver to format the data.
>
>You can install the windows driver for you printer on the linux server and
>samba will allow users on windows boxes to load it when they connect to the
>shared printer, but linux isn't using that driver to talk to the printer.
>
>CD
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>
>  
>