Category: Printer

How to add a SMB Shared Printer on Ubuntu server to Mac

Today I’ll discuss how to add a printer hosted on an Ubuntu server via Samba to a Mac.

First, make sure the printer is on.

Next, download and install the printer driver on your Mac.

Next, open Spotlight Search and type in printers. Printers & Scanners should be highlighter. Press Enter. This will open your printer settings.

Click the + icon to add a new printer. The Add window will appear.

Click IP tab to switch to IP settings.

In the Address field, enter the ip address of the server on which the printer is connected

Under protocol, choose Internet Printing Protocol – IPP. Enter the name of the queue. To find this information, you can open the CUPS admin of the Ubuntu print server, usually at http://{{print server ip}}:631. Go to Printers page, find the printer and copy the link on the printer name. Let’s assume the printer url is http://{{print server ip}}:631/printers/{{printer name}}. In this case, you will enter printers/{{printer name}} for Queue.

Enter a suitable Name and Location.

For Use, click Select Software. The Printer Software window will appear.

Find and click the name of your printer and click OK.

Click Add.

If all goes well, the printer gets added automatically. If doing this for the first time on your Mac, a window will appear showing features you can add to your printer. Click the button to complete the process and you’re done! You can now print from your Mac.

How to install Canon MP250 on Ubuntu 11.10

This article discusses how to install the Canon MP250 all-in-one printer on Ubuntu 11.10

1. Download the printer drivers from the Canon website. You will need to select you Linux under ‘Operating system’ and your language. I choose English in this case.

2. Extract the contents of the archives. You can do this by opening a terminal (ctrl + alt + t), changing to the directory containing the drivers archive and running the following command :
tar xf mp250\ printer\ driver\ 3.40\.tar

I assume the name of the archive is ‘mp250 printer driver 3.40.tar’

Once done, you will have 3 archives created cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-deb.tar.gz, cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-rpm.tar.gz, and guidemp250series-pd-3.40-1_en.tar.gz.

3. Extract the contents of cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-deb.tar.gz using the command :

tar xzf cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-deb.tar.gz

This will create a folder called cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-deb in the same directory.

4. Change to the cnijfilter-mp250series-3.40-1-deb directory. You will find 2 folders (packages and resources) and a file (install.sh).

5. Change to the packages directory. You will see 4 archives :
cnijfilter-common_3.40-1_amd64.deb
cnijfilter-common_3.40-1_i386.deb
cnijfilter-mp250series_3.40-1_amd64.deb
cnijfilter-mp250series_3.40-1_i386.deb

The archives ending with ‘amd64.db’ are for 64-bit machines while those ending with ‘i386.db’ are for 32-bit machines. For the next steps I assume you’re using a 64-bit machine. If using a 32-bit one, do the same on the corresponding files.

6. Double-click cnijfilter-common_3.40-1_amd64.deb. This will fire up Ubuntu Software Centre and install some drivers. Once done, you will see a check mark and the word ‘installed’ for ‘IJ Printer driver for Linux’

7. Double-click cnijfilter-mp250series_3.40-1_amd64.deb. This will fire up Ubuntu Software Centre and install some drivers. Once done, you will see a check mark and the word ‘installed’ for ‘IJ Printer driver for Linux’

8. You’re done. Now test the printer by printing a test page. If all goes well, you will find it works.

Note : I tried using the install.sh file mentioned earlier to no avail, even after commenting out and updating some parts of it as recommended in some articles on the Internet, so I advise not to bother using install.sh.