Conclusions and Final Notes
One great thing about printing from your GNU/Linux machine to your Windows 7 machine is this: you don’t have to be logged in to the Windows 7 machine. The LPD service will run as long as your Windows 7 machine is on. If your Windows 7 machine is off, your print job will normally stay cued in your GNU/Linux machine, and the job will print as soon as you turn the Windows 7 computer on.
I have had this setup running for over a week, and it has worked perfectly every time. I have not had a single error. The system has seamlessly handled the most complex printing jobs that I could throw at it. Now you can setup up your own GNU/Linux-to-Windows 7 printing network.
The demonstration video below shows you all of the steps that I have described in this article.
Thank you for reading TLWIR 49. I look forward to seeing you next time!
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Rather than tell Windows to use a static IP address, I’d leave the Windows machine using DHCP and then configure your router to hand out a static IP address to your Windows box based on its MAC (hardware) address. You can find the MAC in the output of the “ipconfig” command in the line reading “Physical Address” where it should look something like “XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX”. This allows your Windows PC to move uneventfully to other networks and still get the right internal IP address when it reconnects to your home network. It also prevents your router from accidentally handing out the Windows box’s IP address to other DHCP clients.
@Tim Chase, thank you very much for the astute comment. I’ve updated the article to reflect your recommendation.
If you don’t want to use nmap, you could also use netcat (nc) for this. Chances are good it will already be installed.
nc -zv
You will see this if it succeeded:
Connection to port [tcp/http] succeeded!
and this if it failed:
nc: connect to port (tcp) failed: Connection refused
You can ignore my first comment as the site didn’t like angle brackets. Here’s the correct one.
If you don’t want to use nmap, you could also use netcat (nc) for this. Chances are good it will already be installed.
nc -zv (host) (port)
You will see this if it succeeded:
Connection to (host) (port) port [tcp/http] succeeded!
and this if it failed:
nc: connect to (host) (port) port (tcp) failed: Connection refused