Network Printing: Building Print Services on Heterogeneous Networks

Paperless office, paperless schmoffice: if you can't get your document to look right on paper, you might as well not waste time creating it at all. For administrators, printing across a local area network (LAN) was hard enough when everyone was running the same operating system. Now, with at least three widespread versions of Windows, several Mac OS flavors, and Linux servers making inroads all the time, printing can be hairier than ever. Network Printing aims to clarify the mechanisms by which various operating systems--particularly Unix variants--speak to one another about printing matters. It also seeks to explain the procedures that administrators need to follow to get Macs and Windows machines printing on Unix and Linux boxes via Samba. Though it would be nice to see a section on getting Macs to print to Windows printers and vice versa, this book meets its goal.

In the section on Unix printing, all the popular print daemons are explained, including lp, lpr, lpd, and LPRng, relying heavily (and helpfully) on command-line listings. The Samba section on how to install Samba 2.0.6 under Unix and Linux and exercise its important commands is more procedural. Later you learn how to hook up Macs, Windows machines, and NetWare servers to Samba-enabled print servers. --David Wall

Topics covered: Printing over a network, with emphasis on Unix, Linux, Samba, and the means by which they connect to computers running Windows, Mac OS, and NetWare. Popular Unix print utilities are documented, plus how to install Samba and open its services to a heterogeneous network.