I have a printer that successfully prints any document on my Fedora linux desktop.
That printer does not have an UTP port or WIFI. It is connected to my desktop with USB.
There’s also a Windows computer in my home network that needs to be able to print with that printer.
What is the simplest, best way to allow someone working on that Windows computer to regularly print PDF and other documents on that printer? Is there a good, short step-by-step guide somewhere to share my local printer on the network? If that guide has multiple options, what is the best option?
Open Fedora settings, go to printers, click on my printers and look for the option to “share on my network”. No such option exists.
Google “fedora share printer over network”. Which led me here: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/12/html/Deployment_Guide/ch-printing.html
That talks about using printers that are already on the network. It also talks about IPP, Samba, Jetdirect, Pikachu (just kidding) and other mystical words without recommending one, giving me the paradox of choice. In the end, it didn’t help me further. I am looking for the vanilla, simple steps to share my printer on a network
Hello @ge0ffrey ,
Welcome to the discussion area. To share a printer in Gnome Settings if you pick your installed printer, you can click on it’s address link to get the printer administration page that you now use in Fedora Linux to setup and administer printers. You will see under the Administration tab, some details about setting it as the default server printer, and allowing other users access. This is for sure the simplest way I could find, browser driven, able to share the printer with various levels of configurability of the server.
Note that you only need the sections for ‘Share a Printer on Linux’ and ‘Access a Shared Printer on Windows’.
It uses Ubuntu as its Linux, but Fedora has exactly the same printer settings program. Also, the article is from 2017, but you should be able to translate the process easily to your current Windows version.
The Linux printer settings program hasn’t changed at all - it looks exactly the same in Fedora 35 as it does in the article. It’s such a basic program that it looks the same across distributions, so the fact that the article shows Ubuntu is irrelevant.
I mentioned the article is from 2017 because the Windows interface might have changed depending on what version the question-asker is using.
Giving a browser link is fine, but it gives no clue as to how to:
When you save, you’ll be prompted for your credentials with an HTTP Basic Authentication dialog. You must be a member of the wheel, sys, or root group to make changes. The account that is created during installation is a member of the wheel group. Also, any Administrator user accounts that you create in Settings > Users will also be a member of wheel.
Checking that checkbox has the following effect in the /etc/cupsd.conf file:
Then go to your windows machine, in the search box type “printers” to go the printers configuration window.
In that printers configuration panel, click “Add a printer or scanner”. Let it look for a few seconds (make sure you done the ipp firewall stuff more than a minute ago) and your printer will show up. Then select it to add it.
It was using the users browser to locally browse users printer which is on Port 631on the users local network. This is how you administer printers with CUPS.