I'm not sure on this, but I would suspect that once it is shared on the
WinBloz box that to access it you would have to run Samba. Also, does it have
more than the USB port? If so, one could go to the Win box and the other to the
Ubie box. The problem with multi-function printers is they have a complicated
driver and bi-directional communications, even for the older parallel ones.
Printing on a "Network" is always simplified with units that do one thing.
Another way to get at hardware is to hang it on the network. I did IP printing
through SCO Unix all over the world to our various locations without a hitch.
It is just something to think about when building a network. All the problems
associated with a network are there no matter what the size. Anyhow, that's a
little more than 2 cents worth this morning. Later....

The thing is is my linux box is a laptop and it would be incredibly
inconvenient to have to plug a cable in and be stuck in one part of
the apartment. I have been doing some writing lately and am often
connected to my network in the apartment lobby.

Just a quick though - is your Epson equipped with its own network card?
If so, connect it directly to the router and give it a fixed IP
address. I've done this with my HP all-in-one and everything works
fine; printing, scanning, faxing all work seamlessly from my wirelessly
connected laptop.

Other than you wishes you didn't give me anyother details to work with. Does it
have more than one connection? USB? Parallel? If it has a parallel connection
you can connect an HP JetDirect to it and then do IP printing via your network.

I'd still like to hear from a Samba guru out there on this perspective.

Another thought is to print to a file, send it over to a directory on the
WinBloze box and run a CRON job on the Winbloze box that prints the file. Long
way around and slow, but stil a work around concept.

Another thought is find another printer. I picked up a great HP printer at a
garage sale last summer for FIVE bucks and the cartridges were mostly full!
There was nothing wrong with it. The guy just upgraded and this was photo
quality.

Another idea, would be to change out your router with one that has a print
server built into it like Linksys has. I hope this helps you think your way
outta the box.:-)

Its an Epson Stylus CX4200 and I only see the usb port on it. It doesn't
have its own network card I already visited that idea before I asked the
question on here. I just bought it a few months ago before I decided to go
completely Linux on my laptop. Unfortunately I am a 26 year old male with no
kidney function and on medical leave so going and buying a new one at this
time is impossible. Unfortunately I don't get enough money to pay the bills
I have. My disability goes to rent and medications. Sorry don't mean to dry
my laundry on here but thats just a bit of background on why I cant just go
buy another printer even if at a garage sale. Thanks for all your help. I
think I will read up on Samba to see if I can figure it out that way.

This is really easy to set-up for printing if you know the name of the printer,
and the name of the Windoz system the printer is attached to. I did this for
quite a while, but recently bought a Netgear print server ($69) so that the
printer would not have to be connected to a Windoz machine in order to print.

Did you try stepping through the "add a printer" set-up in system settings?

First of all, on the Windows side, you need to share this printer. If
you are already using it on another Windows machine on the network,
chances are good you already are. If not, you need to select that
printer in the Windows Printers dialog, select "Sharing", check the
block that says you want to share this printer and give it a share
name (something simple would be good, as long as it identifies the
printer).

Next, you have to make Ubuntu "look" for network printers. If you
haven't done this before, go to the "System" menu, "Administration"
submenu and select "Printers". This will bring up the Printers
dialog. On the menu for this dialog, select "Global Settings", then
select "Detect LAN Printers". It will give you a warning about this,
that or the other, but you need to do this in order to see the printer
on your Windows machine. After you've checked this option, log off,
then back on.

Now go back to your Ubuntu computer and open the Printers dialog again
(under the System->Administration menu) and see if you can "see" this
printer. If not, you will have to double-click on the "New Printer"
icon and step through the process to add a network printer. I'm
hoping you won't have to.

If you continue to have problems, pm me, and I'll try to assist.

This worked like a dream I think. My system is at
least now seeing the printer. However it wont print due to being completely
out of ink. So I will have to wait to get some ink to be absolutely sure. I
will send my findings once I completely am able to test everything.

I have a HP PSC 1210 (all in one job) but am having trouble with
printing. The problem is not to get it working as it does print and I
use it daily but the problem is that it doesn't do it intelligently.
This printer has two cartridges (colour and black) but if I tell
Ubuntu it is a colour printer it prints everything, including black
from the colour cartridge so the colour runs out before the black has
even been used if I don't just use the black cartridge for printing
text pages.

Does anyone here know how I can fix this so I can leave it on one
single setting and not have to change it manually but that the
computer will use both cartridges as required?

What version of Ubuntu are you using?

How is printer connected? USB?

Sorry, it is a Feisty (7.04) and is connected via USB.

Looking at the printer "Printout Mode" setting, when "Normal" is selected,
only the color cartridge is selected. Likewise when "Normal Grayscale" is
selected, it will use only the black cartridge; it says this clearly in the
description associated with the mode. So, it appears this is a limitation
of the driver implementation or the printer function itself.

Does the printer work differential on "Winblows"?

I realised the settings said normal colour and normal greyscale but I hoped this
was to do with the quality and type of printer. Draft, normal, high, etc. and
colour for colour printers and greyscale, etc. I was hoping that if the driver
was not good enough to detect colour and black printers it would be good enough
to make use of all relevant cartridges as required when the appropriate setting
had been selected. Do you know of any better drivers? I feel this is a serious
problem and don't think Linux will gain widescale acceptance except among users
who don't like M$ until this has been addressed. Printing is one area in which
M$ does seem to be far superior to Linux (and if the other open source systems
are the same they also suffer from the same problem here).

You might try installing the latest HHLIP release. Sometimes a driver
gets broken in one release and fixed in another. This happened recently
with a printer connected to my wifes computer that was running Ubuntu
6.10 and which got fixed with 7.04.

There is an installer to make the update easy. Feisty currently has
hplip version 1.7.3 and the latest release is 2.7.7.

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/install/index.html

On other thing. There are several hp printer applications installed in
Ubuntu that do not show up in the menus. Open a terminal and type:

$ hp

Then press the tab key. You should see the following:

lee@linXos:~$ hp
hp-align hpijs hplj1005 hp-print hp-testpage
hp-clean hp-info hplj1018 hp-probe hp-timedate
hp-colorcal hpiod hplj1020 hp-sendfax hp-toolbox
hp-fab hp-levels hp-makecopies hp-setup hp-unload
hp-firmware hplj1000 hp-makeuri hpssd

Then run, for example. "hp-toolbox:

$ hp-toolbox

You can check for optional startup parameters by passing the --help
option. For example:

$ hp-print --help