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Printing from Mac OSX to Ubuntu 9.10

Last month, Ubuntu released the new version of its operating system, 9.10. I’ve been using Ubuntu for over two years on my home desktop, and have documented some of my struggles and victories with it here. For purposes of this post, know that my wife owns a MacBook and I use a MacBook Pro for work. Both Macs run Snow Leopard, and sit on the same network as my Ubuntu desktop.

For some time, I have used Ubuntu as a print/file/music server to the two Macs, among other things. When I upgraded to 9.10, I was no longer able to print from the Macs to Ubuntu. Ubuntu itself could still print to its own printer, of course, but the Macs gave the error Processing - "Unable to get printer status (Bad Request)!. I’ve seen many other folks on forums with this issue, and I was finally able to get it working today.

If you are having this issue with Mac to Ubuntu 9.10 printing, try these steps. I can’t verify whether they would work with Windows, though I suspect that if there is an issue with Windows, it would have a different resolution. Apple uses CUPS as its print queue, and Ubuntu can use this as well. Windows uses Samba, which Ubuntu can also use, but the two are different.

Steps to follow

  1. On Ubuntu, go to http://localhost:631 in your browser. Click “Printers” and make sure you have the proper name of the printer that is connected to Ubuntu. Click on it, and in the http://localhost:631/printers/PRINTERNAME screen, you can click Set As Server Default. I’m not entirely sure if this is a required step, but I did it.
  2. On the Mac, go to http://localhost:631 in your browser. Go to Administration > Add Printer. Let it finish looking. Choose the “Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)” option, and click Continue.
  3. In the Connection field, type http://SERVERNAME:631/printers/PRINTERNAME where SERVERNAME is the name of your Ubuntu server, and PRINTERNAME is the name by which the server knows the printer, as you saw in step 1. Click Continue.
  4. Note: For me, my previous setup required me to use http://SERVERNAME.local/... in the configuration. This doesn’t work for me in the new setup; I need to use http://SERVERNAME/... instead.
  5. The Name, Description, and Location fields can be whatever you like.
  6. Choose the proper Make and Model for the printer. Click Add Printer.
  7. Set the other options as you like them.
  8. That’s it!

Note: this only works if you can successfully network from the Mac to Ubuntu. If you are not yet able to do that, look at posts like this one on printing from the Mac, and this one on using SSH from the Mac.

7 Comments

  1. FINALLLYYYYY!!! The only solution which 1. makes sense and 2. works! Thanks a lot!

  2. Hey I was wondering what would my ubuntu server name be? Thanks alot

  3. @Tyler: It’s the name of the computer where Ubuntu is installed. You pick this during the installation process.

  4. Well I just used the windows installer to install ubuntu, and I remember picking a username and password, but I don’t recall it asking for a computer name. Would it be the name of what I named it on the windows partition?

  5. I’m not familiar with the Windows installer. That being said, if you can open the terminal or SSH into it, you can log in with your username and password, and type hostname and it’ll give you the server’s name. If you have a desktop package on there, you can open the terminal with Applications > Accessories > Terminal.

  6. Alright, so I got the computer name, which is just ubuntu. And it still isn’t working. Is there anything wrong with this? http://ubuntu:631/printers/psc-1310-series-

  7. Thanks a-bunch this worked perfectly!

About the Designer

Jonathan Stegall is a web designer and emergent / emerging follower of Jesus currently living in Atlanta, seeking to abide in the creative tension between theology, spirituality, design, and justice.

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