ubuntu - printing to windows network printer

[Bender]

I have two windows desktops and a laptop. One desktop has a local canon pixma ip4300 connected to it. I have it shared as a network printer and all three computers print to it.

my laptop is a dual-boot with ubuntu. I am almost always using ubuntu now, and very rarely ever go into Vista on my laptop anymore. Anyway, I'm setting up the windows printer on my ubuntu laptop.

I went to system/administration, Printing, and selected New, then windows printer with samba, then I browsed for the shared printer, clicked on it, and then clicked the Verify connection button. It said the printer was accessible.

ok, now I am at the last part, where it gives you a list of drivers and I am supposed to select one. They are all generic sounding drivers... Dot Matrix, GDI Printer, PCL 3, PCL 4, blah blah... What the heck do I pick, or should I have d/l a canon driver before starting this setup?

thanks!

[jacobdrj]

My intuition says that you have to go into the windows box and set up the drivers there, as you would if you were printing to another version of windows (XP vs Vista vs 7 vs 2k).

But otherwise, I have found that generic drivers are not the way to go. Ubuntu seems to be smart enough to figure out the proper driver on its own. Perhaps you can go into the configuration and search for an installer pack to get the drivers to port over.

[Bender]

I remember on a prior linux distro I was using, I had it working where I could print to the windows shared printer. as you said, I think it just needed the driver on the windows machine, but I'm not sure.

I haven't really messed with the ubuntu setup since my first post. I'll play around with it tonight.

[Johnson]

I used to do this. It should have the right driver listed.