Printer Sharing with eMac, iMac, and iBook not working

Question

Hello, everyone. I hope you guys can help me out with this:
I have an Epson Stylus CX4600 hooked up to my eMac via USB. My eMac prints fine with it. The eMac is getting its internet via an Ethernet wire going downstairs into my Linksys Router, which sends my Shaw internet to my iBook, my iMac, and my eMac.
I want to allow the iMac and iBook to access the printer over the network directly, so I can just print from those computers and have it come out the eMac printer.
I've looked at many articles on this. So far I've installed the drivers on all computers, plus they can all network to each other over File Sharing, so they are connected.
But I haven't been able to print yet. The most I've been able to do is get the files I try to print from the iBook and iMac to show up on the eMac, in its printer queue. Only it didn't show up for a LONG time. And when it did, the jobs automatically stopped and everytime I clicked start, it would automatically switch back to stopped again. The files would not print.
At this point, I want to get the iBook connected to it first. If I can do that, I'll try the iMac. But the iBook is first priority. I've tried making it connect to the Printer using IPP (IP Printing), and the result was... what I explained in the above paragraph. I also tried just ordinary Printer Sharing, but it said something close to this:
"Unable to locate eMac.local, Unknown host."
That hardly makes sense, because at that time I also tried getting the iBook connected to the eMac over File Sharing which worked. For some reason, the "eMac.local" and "iMac.local" files don't show up in my Network thing when I connect to them, or even when they're not connected. HOWEVER, I think they did at one point. I could swear I saw "eMac.local" and "iMac.local" in the Servers folder in the Network section of the iBook at one point. But it's no longer there.
Please help. I've described my problem as well as possible. What a long post. If there's any way to make my eMac, iMac, and iBook be able to print through my Epson Stylus CX4600 at any time directly, then I'll do it.
Help!

Answer 1

Yes. I did say that my eMac, iMac, and iBook are all
connected to the internet and networked to each other
over the Linksys router. I believe the router is
still on factory settings because we never really
"set" or programmed anything with it.
Mac OS 9.2.2 on the iMac, Mac OS X 10.4.8 on the
other two. IP addresses?
192.168.1.100 is what I would use to connect to the
eMac from the other computers.
This is the eMac's IP, correct? Did you type it into Network, or was it assigned by the router's DHCP?
192.168.1.101 is what I would use to connect to the
iBook from the other computers.
This is the iBook's IP, right? Again, fixed or DHCP?
192.168.1.102 is what I would use to connect to the
iMac from the other computers.
Same for this IP.
The iBook, as I've said, is wired. No wireless
connections to speak of.
Okay. Now, if the router is handing out IP addresses via DHCP, what range was it configured for? My Linksys, for example, is configured to hand out IPs in the range 192.168.0.10 to 192.168.0.254. It has the IP 192.168.0.1, so the IPs 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.9 are available for me to hand out as fixed IPs. If I was to hand out 192.168.0.100 as a fixed IP, the router's DHCP server would have a potential problem, as it might hand out that address too, and only one device can have a particular IP address on a particular network. If your router is handing out 192.168.1.100, .101, and .102 via DHCP, you could and probably do have a conflict if you've got those addresses set up as fixed IPs. In particular, if you have anything else on the network, including Bonjour-enabled devices such as printers, you're likely to have a conflict.
Best way to resolve a conflict, if any:
1 set all the Macs to either DHCP, or if fixed IPs are required, to a fixed IP outside the range of the DHCP range on the router. (Or you could just turn off DHCP on the router.)
2 check the router to be sure that DHCP is set the way you want it, and the DHCP pool is what you think it is.
3 shut down the Macs.
4 turn off the router, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on.
5 turn the Macs back on, one at a time.
On my Linksys, the way to set the DHCP pool is simple:
1 log into the router. (My router IP: 192.168.0.1. Yours would be 192.168.1.1.) Hit the 'Setup' tab. Verify the gateway IP. (Should be the router's IP. If it's not, something very strange is happening.) Verify the start of the DHCP pool. Verify that DHCP is on (or off, as you want). Verify the end of the DHCP pool. (My start is 192.168.0.10, and there are 245 IPs in the pool, so the end is 192.168.0.254. If I changed the number of IPs to 200, the end of the pool would be 192.168.0.209, and I'd be able to set the IPs 192.168.0.200 to 254 as fixed IPs if I wanted.) If your router allows for IPs to be reserved, you can set up reserved IPs for one or more of your Macs. (A reserved IP is an IP the router holds for a specific device. The network card in each computer has a specific MAC address; if that address is registered with the router, then every time that computer is turned on and connected it will get the IP that was reserved for it... so long as that IP is in the DHCP range and DHCP is turned on. Think of it as a fixed IP without your having to actually fix the IP.)