Centrally managed machines and Sharp printers

Centrally managed machines can connect to printers using the lpd protocol, which we have found to be more reliable than SMB protocol for all printers except SharpHold, which is a hold and release print queue. For SharpHold, please see the section below, "Self managed machines, including laptops, and the SharpHold delayed print queue".

For setting up Sharp printers otherwise

1. Click "System", "Administration", "Printing" or search for "Printing" and choose the settings for this. Do not use the "Printers" section of the system settings under Debian 12. This will not work. Install the "Print Settings" program and open it instead.
2. In Ubuntu (18.04 and newer), choose "Additional Printer Settings...". This is a button right near the bottom of the Printing settings dialogue.
3. Click "Add"
4. Under "Network Printer", there should be the option "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"
5. Enter the details
   
   1. For Sharp printers, set host to "pcounter2.physics.ox.ac.uk"
   2. Queue: Any valid Sharp printer (e.g. CLSharp171New, DWBSharpL6)
6. Click "Forward"
7. For the "choose driver" dialogue, Select "Provide a PPD file"
   
   1. For public printers, on managed systems the drivers for the printer model will already be available under /etc/cups/ppd/, eg for DWBSharpL6 select /etc/cups/ppd/Sharp-MX-5500N.ppd.
   2. For private or group printers, the appropriate printer drivers should be located and downloaded from the manufacturer website. See the section below.
8. Once the PPD file is selected, Click "Forward"
9. Be sure to set the paper type to A4
10. Set options based on the settings from the page for the printer you are setting up. Here is a list of Sharps in Physics.
    Debian 12: you may need to change the output tray a second time if you get a report of "conflicting settings"
11. Set "two-sided printing (long-edge)",  and Image Quality > Colour profile > set to "black and white"

If you have trouble, skip to "Troubleshooting" at the end.

Centrally managed machines and other printers

You can add any printer to a Linux machine, but you will need the correct PPD (driver) file from the manufacturers website, connection and authentication details.

If IT have set the printer up, it may be available on either the "PCOUNTER2" server or on "printserverx64" server. 

Self managed machines, including laptops, and the SharpHold delayed print queue

The details are nigh on identical to centrally managed machines. The only difference is that step 3 should be "SAMBA" and step 4 should be "pcounter2.physics.ox.ac.uk/SharpHold", for example.

On un-managed machines, you will also need to copy the PPD driver files into place yourself. These files are available from the links below.

The username should be your username in the form physics\username, and the password is your physics password.

There is also IPP, but that does not work well yet. /it-services/internet-printing-protocol-ipp... Use SMB or LPD for now.

<allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active>

to

<allow_any>yes</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>