Connecting a printer to an Arch Linux system for Windows users
Connecting a printer to an Arch Linux system for Windows users
I've dealt with the common belief that printers don’t “just work.” I’ve followed several instructions, set up CUPS and the samsung-unified-driver package, and successfully printed a test page. The issue begins when sharing the printer to a Windows client. I attempted Samba first (see config), but it prompts for a driver, selects my model, and shows the printer in the control panel. Still, nothing prints—no errors, just silence. Then I tried IPP, following each step carefully, but the same problem persists. I also tried changing the printer’s make/model to raw in CUPS, without success. Now I’m stuck with this setup.
The documentation states that printer sharing must be enabled on the cups server for remote access via IPP. If you haven’t done this yet, it might be the cause of your problem: https://www.cups.org/doc/sharing.html. Also check if your firewall on the Arch computer is blocking IPP requests.
Printer sharing is active in cups, and it works in Windows as well. I can access it without issues, but printing documents fails. No firewalls are present on the server. It might be the router that’s preventing requests.
It's been several decades using Windows, yet for shared printers you usually don't install drivers on the client side. CUPS manages the drives and controls the printer for the user, sharing it as a standard device with advertised capabilities like color/BW, duplex, and paper sizes. However, since I've moved away from Windows, I can't help with this setup, nor can I confirm your CUPS settings are accurate. A simple check shows your configuration appears correct. What I'd suggest is removing the printer from Windows and re-adding it as a network device. Avoid picking a specific model—this assumes a local or directly connected printer without a server like CUPS in between.
Try this on the Linux system: add guest user with /bin/nologin then open nano /etc/samba/smb.conf and update the sections accordingly. Include new lines where needed.
[Printers] available = yes guest access = allowed [guest] comment = Guest directory path = /tmp public = yes only guest = yes printables = no
Restart service if issues arise: sudo systemctl restart smb or reboot.
Ensure the client has proper permissions and a valid account on the host for Samba sharing.