Linux printer <-> Mac OSX

T

toerne

Registered
Hi folks,

got the following problem: I have a printer (HP 1100, no PS) running using a Linux box as printer spooler. I want to use this printer as the standard printer of my G4.

I know there are several ways to du it: Samba, Appletalk, standard network printing. My question is, what is the BEST way to do it (simplicity, transparency)?

Your help is very much appreciated,

Chris
 
Um, how many hardware ports does the 1100 have if it has a parallel and USB, can you wire the parallel to the Linux box and the USB to the Mac?
 
OK, so it only has one solitary USB port. (I checked) What about an autosensing USB hub? It would switch automatically between the ports (i.e., computers) based on which one was transmitting a signal.
 
Uuhhm, thanks for your replies, but that wasn't exactly what my question was aimed at. I want to leave the printer connected to the Linux box ONLY because it serves other Linux clients. I just wanted to know if any of you have experience setting up REMOTE printing (over the network) on their Macs -- and I wanted to know which of the alternatives mentioned in my earlier post would be best.

Thanks,

Chris
 
I agree. I have had very good luck with lpd printing using a Ghostcript RIP. Netatalk has painful AFP compatibility issues with OSX. PAP may work fine between them, I haven't tried, but Occam's razor dictates lpd/Ghostscript. Regarding Samba, I don't think OS X can print over Netbios.
 
I agree. I have had very good luck with lpd printing using a Ghostcript RIP. Netatalk has painful AFP compatibility issues with OSX. PAP may work fine between them, I haven't tried, but Occam's razor dictates lpd/Ghostscript. Regarding Samba, I don't think OS X can print over Netbios.
 
Oh! The dreaded double post. I thought of something else which probably won't help much. ;-) Could you configure OS X to be the print server?
 
Hi Chenley,

well of course I _could_ do that, but I have the linux box running all the time (file server, web service, router, ...), and connecting the printer to the Mac would mean I have to have two computers running all of the time which I don't want to do.

I have lpd running on Linux -- I didn't think this would simply do it (as mentioned in another reply), I'll check tonight.

Thanks.

Chris
 
Yeah, at work I was having Postscript incompatibilities between OS X and an HP LJ 8050 (or something like that). It kept telling me I needed a PSL2 driver. Finally I got sick of it, sshed into a RedHat 7.2 workstation I had built for our Ops team, added my TiBook to its hosts.lpd, and created an lpr printer in Print Center. Ghostscript has no problem with my OS X PSL2. I now print PostScript flawlessly to a non PostScript HP LJ 4050N.

Actually, I am considering installing Ghostscript on our OS X image so the Mac users can print to non-PS printers. Thank god for the GPL.
 
Sounds great. There is a Mac OS X-specific Hewlitt-Packard LaserJet software package available (free of charge, of course) from HP; OS X's two-dimensional graphics layer is Apple's Quartz, which is essentially Display PostScript, and it's optimized for PostScript 3 output devices. HP is in the process of converting over to PostScript, but the overwhelming majority of their devices are PostScript 2 EMULATION, that is, not the real thing. Some of the new units are PostScript 3 emulation, which would work fine. I believe the driver was released to confront the very issue you were having. Happy trails.
 
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