Using a Remote Windows Printer in KDE

I don't print things very often. What can I say? It's just not a paper world anymore... at least not for slackers like yours truly. When I do, I have to wrestle with one of the least pleasant parts of the Linux world, namely interoperating with Windows. I'm gonna tell you right now, it's not pretty.

The problem is that KDE's printer dialogues are, to put it eloquently, friggin' retarded. What follows is the unofficial procedure for getting your Windows printer to spit out your Unix document. If you're having problems, hopefully something here will be helpful.

First Things First...

What follows are some of the wonderful error messages you might see while trying to setup that windows printer. I'm reprinting these so all you penguin-heads out there in cyberspace can actually find this page.

If any of the following look familiar, you're reading the right page.

Error returning browse list: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED

Unable to change printer properties. Error received from manager:
You are not authorized to access the requested resource.

So, WTF do I do?

Warning: To anyone with half a functioning brain, the following walkthrough will look stupid. You have been forewarned.

1. Go to the K-Menu -> Control Center -> Peripherals -> Printers


2. Click the Administrator Mode button in the lower-left corner and enter your root password when prompted.


3. Click Add at the top and then Add Printer/Class...


4. Click Next, then choose SMB shared printer (windows) and click Next again.


5. Choose Anonymous (no login/password) and click Next.


6. Click Scan and then browse to the computer that the printer is attached to. Don't bother trying to browse to the printer itself. It won't work.


7. Click Back, choose Guest account (login="guest") and then click Next.


8. Now browse to the printer, select it and click Next.


9. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. Select the make and model of printer, etc. Next, Next, Next, ad infinitum.

And that's it. Constabulations! You've just installed a printer which should now be generally accessible from programs in KDE... at least, until the next time you reboot, at which point you'll probably have to repeat this procedure. Ugh. I suppose it's not really that bad, but as I mentioned, it's pretty stupid. Hopefully this little kink will be fixed in one of the upcoming releases. It would probably help if someone entered a bugreport.

In Other News...

Man, it's been a long damn time since I made an update to the Giant Roblog. 3 months. Jeebus, where does the time go?

I've got a bunch of things to talk about, so expect some updates in the not-too-distant-future (hahahahaha).

Until then, keep it on ice, kats...