finding appropriate printer drivers for SAMBA server

Here's the situation :
There is a Windows XP box, a Debian 4.0 box and an OSX laptop.

The Debian box is has an HP Photosmart D5160 attached by USB to it. The
The Debian computer runs SAMBA. Both the Debian box and the Windows box
can print to the printer (Windows box through network).

The OSX laptop cannot print to the printer. I added the printer as
'Windows Printer via SAMBA' and it seemed to be detecting it ok.

The first problem is that an appropriate driver does not appear for the
printer. I downloaded and installed the HP software for OSX from HP's
site, but most of that seems to be software for controlling special
features and graphics, not a driver. So first question, does anyone
know the extension I should look for in terms of an appropriate driver file?

Secondly, the generic driver does not produce any obvious errors, but it
also doesn't produce any printing either. The mac appears to
successfully print, but the job really disappears into never-never land.
Is this symptomatic of the drivers? Have I botched something in the
set up of the mac? (I know least about macs and OSX)

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

Andrew wrote:

> So first question, does anyone
> know the extension I should look for in terms of an appropriate driver
> file?

*.PPD
(postscript printer description)
In some cases, they are also used if the printer doesn't understand
postscript.

> Secondly, the generic driver does not produce any obvious errors, but it
> also doesn't produce any printing either. The mac appears to
> successfully print, but the job really disappears into never-never land.
> Is this symptomatic of the drivers? Have I botched something in the
> set up of the mac? (I know least about macs and OSX)

I did it once, and it took me an hour or so.
I don't remember how I did it exactly, but I think it was quite similar to
this procedure:
http://developer.apple.com/documenta...g/Conceptual/\
UsingPPDFiles/ppd_tasks/chapter_3_section_2.html

Regards,
Daniel