[wplug] printing to network printer

[Rick Reynolds]

I'm attempting to print to a networked Lexmark z65n printer that was 
obviously made to be on a Winblows network.  It may be a lost cause to 
get this working via cups, but I want to give it a real try. 
Specifically, I'd like to make it a little dedicated 3x5 card printer. 
I've found what I believe to be a valid .ppd file for this printer via 
Lexmark's website (I had to extract it from a malfunctioning install 
tarball), so there is a bit of hope.

This printer advertises itself as a networkable printer.  You just plug 
it in to a network switch and presto, it works with Windows or Mac 
(supposedly).  In reality, I found that it is hardcoded to a crazy IP 
address and I had to jump through some hoops to get it changed to 
something on the same subnet as the rest of my machines.  But it reports 
a proper IP now.

My next step will be to make sure that a Winblows computer on the 
network can print to it when it has the proper Lexmark software 
installed.  Assuming that goes well (which I believe it will as the 
software has already worked to reset the IP address), I'll still need to 
understand how to make cups talk to a generic networked printer.

All the howtos I've seen for this kind of scenario are about creating a 
Linux print server and serving out a printer on the network via cups 
itself or samba.  That's not what I'm wanting to do here.  I want to 
have a client machine using cups talk to a networked printer that isn't 
connected to any computer (Winblows or otherwise).  Can anyone point me 
to some documentation for this scenario?  Other related topics that 
might be necessary to do this:

1. I don't know how to properly create a generic URI for a printer 
resource on the network.  I've seen different howtos that show using 
something like "socket://ip.address:9100" others that use 
"http://ip.address" and others that have something like 
"ipp://ip.address/printer/printer_name".

2. I'm not clear on the function of the .ppd file in the mix.  Is IPP a 
standard protocol for printing that is printer driver independent?  Is 
the .ppd file only used when you have a printer connected to the local 
printer itself (e.g. on a machine being used as a print server)?  Or do 
all cups client machines need that info?  If the .ppd is really only 
about driving a printer in a server scenario, then does it make sense to 
have it installed on my client machine that will be talking to the 
networked printer?

Thanks for any help.  Really, I feel like I've googled this to death, 
but I haven't come across the bits of information that I need.

Rick Reynolds
-- 
  "You know what the three big lies are, don't you? 'The check is in the 
mail,' 'I'll still respect you in the morning,' and 'the Keyboard will 
be out in the spring.'" -- Jay Leno at the Mattel Electronics 1981 
Christmas party