If you mean what is the purpose of sharing a printer via Samba on Linux, the answer is the same as why you would share a printer between Windows machines. To make the printer accessible to other users on the network.
If the printer is not supported in Linux, you may still be able to print to it by connecting it to an Windows computer and "sharing" it over the network. Make sure you have Samba installed.
Samba can be used to allow connection between Linux and Windows.Manely use for printer sharing,directory sharing and many useful feature. /etc/RC.d/init.d/sabma (start,stop,reastrt) use for active samba service. For samba configuratiuon use this file /etc/smb.conf change those workgroup = WORKGROUPNAME server string = MACHINE DESCRIPTION In this file we configure setting for printer sharing and Directory sharing.
Samba Server is the Linux implementation of SMB, or Server Message Block. It is utilized for network sharing of files and printers.
If you want to share files with other linux computer use NFS. If you want to share files with windows computer use SAMBA.
Samba server is used fo sharing file and folder and directories over the network ,whether sharing between windows to Linux or vice versa,same case with the ftp but 1)ftp can provide anonymous access to the clients,that means,there is no need to have users account on ftp server 2)files first need to be downloaded from windows or Linux before viewing it,in case of samba we can direct share files. 3)in case of samba there is need of samba clients on samba server for accessing files.
Make sure that you have installed the Samba client package on your system.
The best way between Linux and Windows is through Samba. Samba is an open source implementation of Microsoft's Server Message Block protocol, which is what Windows uses for file and print sharing. Between Linux boxes, however, it can be as simple as a networked filesystem.
Samba is the open source implementation of Microsoft's "Server Message Block" protocol. This is the protocol Windows uses for file and print sharing. Samba is therefore primarily meant for interoperability between Linux and Windows on the same network so Windows can access shares on a Linux machine. Samba is also useful for non-Windows devices that only ever assume what you will run is Windows on your network. Consumer-level media devices like Blu-Ray players that allow streaming of media from your computer are especially guilty of this.
smbd and nmbd
Samba.
"File-sharing" is a platform-independent concept, that of sharing files between computers. If you are referring to the service / file system that allows other computers on the same network to access files on the local computer, this is usually done with NFS (Network File System). For compatibility with Windows, it is also possible to use Samba.
To create a Samba server in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, first, install the Samba package using the command yum install samba samba-client samba-common. Next, configure the Samba configuration file located at /etc/samba/smb.conf by defining the shared directories and access permissions. After editing the configuration, start the Samba services with service smb start and service nmb start, and ensure they are set to start on boot using chkconfig smb on and chkconfig nmb on. Finally, set up user access with smbpasswd -a username for any user you want to grant access to the Samba shares.