From: "Ed Durrant" <virtualized_ecs_users@2rosenthals.com>
Message-ID: <4BF88AE7.4050002@durrant.mine.nu>
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 11:54:47 +1000
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To: Virtualized eCS Users Mailing List <virtualized_ecs_users@2rosenthals.com>
Subject: Re: [Virtualized eCS] Printer support
References: <list-2432234@2rosenthals.com>
In-Reply-To: <list-2432234@2rosenthals.com>
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Doug Bissett wrote:
> On 2010-05-23, at 08:10:38, Ed Durrant wrote:
>   
>> I've been trying to get a sort of Wintendo print server in virtualbox 
>> working for sometime - it would of course only work over network 
>> connectivity - I take it you are "riding" on the eCS Wifi support to get 
>> to the wifi enabled printer. 
>>     
>
> No, I am using the  Virtual Switch to access the router, which uses the
> WiFi to access the printer. I suppose it would also work if I used the
> eCS WiFi to access the router (not sure how, or if, the printer could
> be made to work using the eCS WiFi, without the router). 

So you are saying you have been able to get the Windoze WiFi drivers to 
see the WiFi hardware in the host system via the virtual switch? If 
that's possible it opens up other options to support currently 
non-supported by eCS WiFi cards - i.e. VLAN into the virtualised windows 
session and route out through the WiFi link to the outside world.

> As far as the
> guest XP system is concerned, it just sees the printer on the network,
> and has no idea that it is running in a virtual machine. The host
> machine knows nothing about it, except the part that causes the data to
> be transferred  to/from the router.
>
>   
>> I have never found a way to have the data 
>> "captured" by a Win32 program and auto sent to the printer without 
>> hitting the printer driver problem however - I need something to convert 
>> incoming standard (i.e. PS or PCL) data into native printer language 
>> within the Wintendo Virtual session. Haven't found anything that works 
>> so far. If I could do this I could load a stripped down (and locked 
>> down) Windoze image in Virtualbox (or VPC/2) and have it running to take 
>> care of printing to any Windoze compatible networked printer.
>>     
>
> I think the WiFi setup would work with any windows machine sharing the
> printer, but for eCS (or Linux etc.) to use the printer, they would
> need a compatible printer driver so they could use the shared printer.
> The trick seems to be that the windows in the virtual machine sees the
> printer as network connected, and it is not dependent on anything else.
> At least the guest windows can use the printer as if it was a real
> windows using a network connected printer (and scanner).
>
>   

> Your problem would seem to be that you want to capture the data, then
> convert it to something that the windows driver can send to the
> machine. The only thing, that I can think of, would be to print to a
> PDF file, in eCS (or Linux etc.), and send that to windows. Then, you
> would need to, somehow, get the windows PDF support to print it
> (possibly as simple as opening the PDF file in Acrobat Reader, then
> printing it). I am not sure, but I think that GhostScript has a windows
> version that might do that, with a little help from a script of some
> sort.
>
>   
That's exactly what I have been trying to achieve. There are some 
Windows Daemons that claim to be able to do this but I've had no success 
with them so far.

>> By the way I guess you know the latest versions of CUPS/2 work via USB 
>> as well as parallel and network?
>>     
>
> I never tried parallel, but I have got USB to work, up to a point. My
> brother has the Canon Pixima MP620, and a Canon i960. I also have an
> i960, but never got it to work  with CUPS (haven't tried for over a
> year). I did get my brother's i960 to work, but there is something odd
> about the colors. 
Yes I've seen colour change using CUPS as well - strangely when using 
Adobe reader vs Lucide, Lucide tends to give better colours through the 
same drivers as Abobe but neither are 100% correct on the colours.

> I can get the MP620 to work with CUPS too, but it
> puts a line of blank dots, between each line of dots, causing only the
> top half of the page to be printed on a whole page. CUPS is still not
> usable with either machine, but it is close. When (if) CUPS ever
> supports these machines properly, it should be possible to use a shared
> printer to do the printing, but I think it should also be possible to
> use CUPS to print directly to the network attached printer (not sure
> how though, I didn't have the time to try to figure that out). The
> really interesting part is that the scanner also works with the windows
> guest.
>   

I currently have two printers connected via the network and printable to 
from any machine on my network (eCS and Windoze - haven't got any Linsux 
systems currently) - one is the HP OfficeJet 6210 all-in-one MFC with a 
built in (cabled) network connection and the other is a Canon PiXMA 
IP4500 connected from it's USB cable to a Linksys  WPS54G Wireless/wired 
print server. The HP is also USB connected to my main eCS system and can 
print using CUPS either via USB or over the LAN.


-- 
Cheers/2

Ed

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