Serving Print Jobs

Posted in General by GWild on January 15, 2007 @ 09:55

I have four computers in the house (five if I connect my work laptop) running three different OS’s.

Wife’s notebook: Mac OS X (10.2.28)

My Linux: Gentoo (my primary box)

Other Two: Windows XP (three boxes if counting my work laptop)

I have a single printer – a 10 year old HP LaserJet 6L.

I never took the time to set up printing on all of the boxes, so anything I had to print on my old LaserJet6L was done on my upstairs Windows box. I decided that I should get off my duff and get printing going from any box on my home network.

I did some digging around, and found a version of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) for about $95USD, and ordered/installed it to upgrade my Wife’s system to an IPP enabled version of the OS.

I then googled/rtfm’d low cost print servers. I ended up buying a Zonet print server. It has one Parallel and two USB ports. The docs stated that it supports IPP and multiple OS’s so I took a chance and ordered it from NewEgg. There were zero reviews for this model, but it appeared to have the features I needed at a price I was willing to pay (about $60 USD).

Lo and behold. Once I figured out a few small configuration issues it worked great. While I was not able to use IPP for printing under Linux or OS X, the device included a driver CD for IPP under Windows.

The final outcome:

Windows boxes: Installed manufacturer IPP client software, and easily configured printing to the server.

OS X: Was unable to use IPP, but the device supports AppleTalk. Easily configured printing to the server.

Gentoo: Via CUPS 1.2.6, I could not configure printing using the IPP. I configured CUPS to print using the LP Daemon and it works flawlessly.

It was nice to be able to continue using my old LJ6, since I see no reason to get rid of a fully functional printer. Once I was able to configure the print server/systems I ordered a roller replacement kit for the printer. I installed the kit, and my old printer is still marching on.