Good day everyone,
I am new to Linux and I’ve been interested to learn. Right now I run a printshop where customers come with their windows 10 laptops to print. I have installed RL 8.5 and I want customers to be able to print through the RL 8.5 as print server. Most of them are architects and engineers printing from autocad and PDF. I have installed samba and cups as per instructions I saw on the internet. My problem is how to put the windows driver on the RL server for customers to connect and install automatically.
Your help highly appreciated. I was using a win10 as the print server and everything was working fine before it crashed. Now I have decided to go with Linux so I can fast track my learning.
Thanks
You cannot put Windows drivers on Linux. Windows drivers are for Windows. You need a Linux driver or PPD file which is the Linux driver for your printer. Although in a lot of cases, Linux already includes a load of them by default.
The most important part you missed out of your post though. What make and model of printer is it?
If you are wanting to share the downloaded Windows drivers, then you would need to create an SMB share within samba, and put the installer exe for your printer drivers there.
Thanks for your response. We have 3 Xerox printers, WC 5335, 5955 and 7855 which of course we want to share.
I will try that and report back. Thanks
Just checked for the WC 5335: Drivers & Downloads - WorkCentre 5325/5330/5335 - Linux - Xerox seems to show Linux drivers from 2011 - old printer - I would expect this to be able to work in cups without having to download anything at all to be honest. But it can vary.
For the 5955: Drivers & Downloads - WorkCentre 5945/5955 - Linux - Xerox bit more promising at least there are RPM packages from 2022.
The 7855 also: Drivers & Downloads - WorkCentre 7830/7835/7845/7855 - Linux - Xerox has drivers from 2022 in RPM.
That said, I would only install additional RPM’s or PPD’s if the cups server on Linux doesn’t find them by default. Assuming of course you want to connect them to Linux and print.
If you are just wanting to have a central place for downloading the Windows drivers, then as I said before, samba would be the way forward for that. It just means connecting to the samba share to run the exe or download it locally to the computer and install it. Obviously at that point, the appropriate details for connecting to the printer - IP address if printing across the network, should all be that is needed.
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Hi,
I know what @Wale is talking about… I have seen that feature back in a company I worked for: Once that a Windows client “added” a given printer, there was some kind of “driver autodiscovery” in place and the client was able to seamlessly download and install the drivers.
Sadly, I am pretty convinced that this is a windows (client) built-in mechanism. You know, that kind of proprietary standards “extensions” they use to fiddle into stuff at Microsoft. In order for that to work with a Linux server, the question is where and how to put the drivers so that if a windows client triggers its driver search, the server is able to serve that request (or even handle that request) - which is beyond my knowledge. I guess you’ll need someone who is more savvy on Windows stuff. Knowing Linux probably doesn’t solve that challenge. 
HTH, Thomas
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@schroedingersdog exactly what I want to do. I have seen that and discovered that there is a samba print share named print$ where the windows drivers has to reside. My problem now is how to put the drivers there. When I try to do that from a windows client using Print Management app it couldn’t connect. The error says “the Network Printer Installation wizard cannot be launched. Make sure the print spooler service on the server is running and available to client computers”.
It’s worth looking into “driverless printing”; I don’t understand it, but had some surprising results doing things like sending a raw PDF file to an HP printer and it printed. Then I tried things like generic postscript, then generic PCL.
There’s also the concept of IPP, where you have a network printer listening, and somehow a client can print to it (without a proprietary driver). The people at cups are already babbling about removing support for all print drivers.
Hi @Wale - these are the dirty details I guess. Making Linux/Samba to work and behave as expected by Windows. Probably it’s an access rights thing or some “v1” vs. “v2” setting in some odd config file.
But do you really need to use that Print Management App to place print drivers somewhere? I thought it was sufficient to place some kind of “.exe” file (driver installer app) somewhere?
Update:
Yep, you’re right, it seems one has to use that windows app for placing the drivers. It’s also mentioned here:
https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_Automatic_Printer_Driver_Downloads_for_Windows_Clients
That really smells like some kind of tiny config flag being wrong, user rights not matching 100% or some kind of policy thing inside windows that prevents the app from getting its information from the server. 
Hi Wale a Suggestion here
You May Ask Your Clients To Print To .xps or pdf Format and Share File to a Samba Share on your Linux Server.And You may Script in Python + pymupdf to Auto Print Those Documents
Or Can Print Manually By Using Okular or Calibre or Kind Of Software (xps or pdf viewers for linux).
I Believe xps Printing Is Available On Windows as a Default Feature.