Utilizing a local printer in KRDC sessions
I’ve set out on a mission recently to be fully capable of performing all my work duties via Kubuntu. While it seemed totally possible at first I’ve come to realize there are certain tasks I’m responsible for where I can’t get by without Windows. In any case, that hasn’t stopped me completely as KRDC has been an easy way to get access to a Windows environment in those scenarios where I need it. But one thing has been a real pain until today, and that has been the inability to print to my local printer from these remote sessions. After some googling (with little success) and reading RDesktop MAN pages (KRDC uses this for RDP connections) I got it all figured out though. Here are the steps in case you ever find yourself needing this functionality:
- Open up your “Host Configuration” in KRDC. This pops up every time you’re connecting to a new host, but if you want to edit an old one you can get to it from the Settings menu and choosing “Configure KRDC…” and then hitting the “Hosts” option in the window that pops up.
- Once at the “Host Configuration” screen, look for the “Extra options:” line towards the bottom and type “-r printer:name_of_your_printer” (without the quotes)
That’s it! Super easy. If you are unsure of the name of your printer (which I wasn’t to start out) you can find that by going to the KMenu, choosing System Settings, hitting the Advanced tab, and then the Printer Configuration icon towards the bottom. Your printer’s name will be listed under the Local Printers line in the left window.
