Print servers and how to share a printer

For 5 or 10 posts as a minimum with intensive printing, you may perhaps look at a PC print server, which means a dedicated machine, running preferably on Linux. An old PC, Pentium 1 or 2 for example, with 64 MB of RAM and a small hard drive of 40 GB will do the job.
You can install any Linux distribution (Gentoo, Mandriva, Debian) you like, and you will only require a monitor for the installation of the server. Next, you will be able to administer the server from any other the other machines on the network via your web browser. You can see what jobs are currently being printed, cancel them, perform maintenance on the printer… For more details on the installation, then take a look at these help documents: http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/cups and http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/samba.

We easily performed this task with Ubuntu, with the online technical documentation being very thorough! You first of all need to connect the PC to your router via Ethernet. The Samba and CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) packages for the management of the print files are normally already installed under Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy).

If CUPS is not installed, the command “sudo apt-get install cupsys cupsys-client” will do the job for you. For Samba, “sudo aptitude install samba” will install the package and “sudo /etc/init.d/samba” will start the service. In the System and Services menu you should see the cupsys printer service and the Samba folder sharing service (and printer).

Next, you simply need to add the printer connected to your system (System, Administration, printing). In our case the printer is a USB Epson, which was naturally detected as it would be under Windows. In the server settings, you have to allow users to see the printer; activate its sharing and allow remote administration if this is required.

On the client posts, to add or manage the printer you will need to enter the network address into the web browser: http://localhost:631, if looking locally or the IP address of your Internet connection followed by port 631. Printing will be possible from any Windows PC, MAC or Linux machine and it can even be administered remotely!