[UPDATE 10/24/2007: If you own one of these Linksys print servers and want to print through it using OSX, take it back to the store now. Here's why.]
While trying to set up our home theater Mac Mini to print to our shared printer, I accidentally deleted the printer on my MacBook (this is what happens if you run too many VNC sessions on machines that share a look-and-feel!). Putting aside for one minute the stupidity of having done this, I found myself completely unable to set the printer up again. Linksys assumes the entire world uses Windows and offers little help to those 15% of us that have found a more enlightened path.
I'd had many struggles with setting up the print server the first time around and simply could not remember the secret combination that enabled me to print wirelessly from all our Macs. But I've figured it out now and thought it'd be a useful "howto" for others who have been similarly frustrated.
There are a bunch of people claiming that this sequence works (from the Linksys support community forums). This assumes that you have set up the print server with its wireless settings and a static IP address.
- On Mac OS, open System Preferences and select ‘Print & Fax’. Click on the "+" icon (lower left) to add a printer. Click on the IP Printer icon (top). Select "Line Printer Daemon – LPD".
- In the Address field, enter the IP address of the Print Server.
- In the Queue field, enter L1.
- In the Name field, enter L1.
- Select the printer manufacturer from the pull down menu.
- Select the printer model from the scroll box.
- Click "Add".
- A window should appear showing your newly added printer "L1". Click L1 once to select it. Then click "Printer Setup" (middle right). The Printer Setup window will open. Click on the "Installable Options" pull- down menu and select "Name & Location". The Name and Location window will open. Do the following:
- Change Printer Name to the IP address of Print Server
- Change Location to IP_[IP of Print Server]P1 i.e. IP_192.168.1.xxxP1
- Click on Apply Changes.
And lots of people have said it works for them. This is all correct except for step 11. Instead of reading "IP_[ipaddressofprintserver]P1", it should be "IP_[nameofprintserver]P1" (without the square brackets).
The MacOSXHints site has a good run-down on how to find the name of the print server but they too make a mistake on step 11, suggesting that you have to type "IP_[ip of <nameofprintserver>]P1", if you read their instructions literally.
So the definitive, I-swear-to-God-this-works sequence is as follows. Again, this assumes that you have set up the print server with its wireless settings and a static IP address.
- On Mac OS, open System Preferences and select ‘Print & Fax’. Click on the "+" icon (lower left) to add a printer. Click on the IP Printer icon (top). Select "Line Printer Daemon – LPD" and do the following:
- In the Address field, enter the IP address of the Print Server.
- In the Queue field, enter L1.
- In the Name field, enter L1.
- Select the printer manufacturer from the pull down menu.
- Select the printer model from the scroll box.
- Click "Add".
- A window should appear showing your newly added printer "L1". Click L1 once to select it. Then click "Printer Setup" (middle right). The Printer Setup window will open. Click on the "Installable Options" pull- down menu and select "Name & Location". The Name and Location window will open. Do the following:
- Change Printer Name to the IP address of Print Server
- Change Location to IP_[NameOfPrintServer]P1, i.e. IP_LK32B953P1
- Click on Apply Changes.
You can change the printer name to anything you want at this point, so you can easily recognize it. I hope this works for you, too!
Don't swear by anything b/c if your model does not appear in the scroll box... good luck to you. You'll be lucky if you can actually find the driver needed from the company's web site, or at all.
Posted by: Striker Flux | July 10, 2007 at 05:00
You're quite right! If your printer name isn't available in the drop down in Step 6 of the above procedure, you may have trouble. Canon, for example, has drivers available to download for their IJ series of printers but they are not available in that drop-down, for some reason. I guess they assume that people will used them through USB, and not through a print server, which is so short-sighted I can hardly believe it.
Posted by: Dave | July 10, 2007 at 08:56
I agree. Attempting to run it on a multi-OS wifi network. My PC, I had this server up and running in minutes with an HP OfficeJet 5610. Works perfect. But with Mac's, the printer doesn't come up in the drop down list and all I get is the infamous: "Network host ...... is busy, down or unreachable; will try again in 30 seconds".
No one at HP, LinkSys OR Mac can help in anyway shape or form. Useless.
Posted by: Jeremy Campbell | July 12, 2007 at 11:56
> all I get is the infamous: "Network host ...... is busy, down or unreachable;
> will try again in 30 seconds"
Well at least I know I'm not the only one getting this result. I too followed Dave's steps without success. And my situation was complicated as well by the fact that my HP PCS 1310 series printer was not showing up in the list of printers. However, I solved that problem by installing a print driver from the Linux Foundation. A good description of installation the print driver is here
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=284869
for the HP 1310 series, or here
http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
for all others.
After doing that, I was able to follow Dave's 11 steps and find my printer in the list, but unfortunately, the result is the same: the "Network host... 30 seconds" error message.
I can ping my print server, 192.168.1.150 in my case, so it's not that it's unreachable. I'm a new Mac user; is there some sort of firewall port I might need to open?
Anyone have any suggestions?
Posted by: Bill | July 23, 2007 at 08:04
So it appears that there's no sure-fire way of making this work consistently!
I doubt it's a firewall issue...
Posted by: Dave | July 23, 2007 at 08:22
Ditto here. While my Mac will communicate withe print server, when I try to print anything from any program, I get one page of gobblegook and endless blank pages sptting from the printer.
Any ideas, o knowledgeable ones?
RDS
Posted by: Robert Schulte | September 30, 2007 at 14:19
thx man, works great with my mac.
Posted by: revelations666 | February 10, 2008 at 08:53
what if i have not set up the ip? is there any way to do that on leopard (10.5.3)?
Posted by: Arnav | May 30, 2008 at 19:04
I believe it works if you do the following (though I haven't tried it to confirm):
1. Connect your Mac to the print server directly using an Ethernet cable
2. Turn your Airport card off
3. Open a browser and try to access http://192.168.1.1. That will hopefully open the print server configuration screen where you can enter a static IP address of your choice.
Posted by: Dave | June 01, 2008 at 15:22
Hi all,
Finally, after few hour and many head ache I could make it work.
Will be necessary to access to the Print Server through web browser inserting its IP address (better using wired connecction, not wifi) and changing to ASCII mode instead of binary under Protocol >> AppleTalk tab. Of course, under Status tab AppleTalk checkbox should be enabled.
Set a new printer with AppleTalk under System Preferences >> Printer and Faxes and selecting Local AppleTalk Zone. On the list box will appear the Print Server as a PostScript printer. Select and select your printer in the drop down list below.
This worked to me with a WPS54G and a Samsung ML 2010R printer.
Cheers!
Stosser
Posted by: Stosser | June 14, 2008 at 18:31