Using Shared Printer (Windows) with Ubuntu

[faint545]

So I got my first netbook today and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu Netbook Remix. All is good, until I tried setting up the printer. My only printer is plugged in via USB to my desktop (Windows). This setup was just fine with one machine. Now I have a netbook and would love to print wirelessly.

So I setup my printer to be shared on the network and then I went into System > Administration > Printing on my Ubuntu machine. I then went to add a new printer and selected the Windows Printer via SAMBA option (image). I first tried typing in the following syntax... computer_name / printer_name. That didn't work. So I then tried this syntax... ip_address / printer_name and that had indeed worked.

My question is, why is this happening? I'd much prefer using the computer name versus the IP address in case the IP address for my desktop changes.

[Tin]

Do you have the Samba package and dependencies installed on your netbook? Drop down to a terminal and without the quotes type "sudo apt-get install samba". That will let your netbook see all of your Windows devices.

[faint545]

Already have it installed. I followed this small tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89hjWOb8qmY. By the way, this may be of relevance, I'm on a school network. I'm not sure if that will affect anything. However, my roommate is able to connect to my desktop using my computer name so I don't see why it wouldn't work with Ubuntu. I also made a mistake previously where I had said...

Now I have a netbook and would love to print wirelessly.

To print, I would still have to plug in my netbook into the router. Wireless at this school has a different router than the wired in my building.

[kilgoretrout]

Hooking up a computer name with a given IP is usually configured in the /etc/hosts file in linux. If you post your /etc/hosts file I can probably show you how to edit it to make that association. Ubuntu may have a GUI tool to do the same thing but the edit is pretty easy to do by hand. However, if your IP address changes on your desktop, you would have to redit your hosts file.