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I have an old imac that I have turned into a printing server with cups, it is running debian

I need to set up printing on a mac running leopard

I have tried inputing the info directly on the localhost:631 but it didn't show up when I need to print something, the test page worked fine

I then tried to put it in directly from system preferences it appeared in the menu were you select your printer but I couldn't print, when I printed the test page it printed weird symbols and I saw the word adobe, the printer driver was the generic postscript printer, that is why I believe the word adobe was there, also after that first page it would print blank pages untill the printer ran out of paper

it is getting quite annoying

please help!!!!

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2 Answers

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If you're looking to turn an old iMac into a print server so that you can print from another Mac over the network, there's no need to mess around with cups or Debian.

Just install Mac OS X, then go into System Preferences -> Sharing then turn on Printer sharing. From there you can select which printers to share and which users can access them.

On your other Macs, you can add these printers in the System Preferences -> Print & Fax pane by clicking the "+". If both computers are on the same network, your Macs should automatically detect the shared printers on your iMac.

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did I mention it's an imac g3, it can't handle os x, that's why I got debian, it's the only operating system that would be relatively easy and could run on it – Luke San Antonio May 22 '11 at 23:27
@Luck The iMac G3 can officially handle up to Mac OS X 10.3, and there are ways of installing 10.4 on there – Kyle Cronin♦ May 22 '11 at 23:29
I prefer mac os x over linux, don't get me wrong, but were can I find a 10.3 mac os x install disc – Luke San Antonio May 23 '11 at 2:31
@Luck You could try Amazon or eBay – Kyle Cronin♦ May 23 '11 at 2:37
it's quite expensive, and I am quite young and don't have much money. I got it to work anyways... I edited a few config files and it worked. now I don't have to even touch that old imac again. thanks a lot for helping though – Luke San Antonio May 28 '11 at 15:02
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Try using the HP LaserJet 4 driver. I heard somewhere it's one of the most basic drivers and apparently that lots of drivers are based on it, just with added functionalities.

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