[meem]

I am thinking about getting a wireless/wired print server. Probably one of the linksys ones just because i have a linksys wireless router (befw11s4) and I'm hoping it will make things easier to set up.

My question is does the printer in question need to be a networkable printer? meaning with a ethernet port and all. the printer I have, samsung 1210, has a USB port and a paralel port.

My network at home has 4 computers 2 dell laptops and 1 dell desktop and my powerbook. All the dells run XP home. I had the printer sharing through the desktop but thats my moms and she keeps turning it off.

btw this is really for the convienience of the dell users not me, I'm hoping the print server can be hooked up to the printers parallel port. I have no problem just walking my PB over to the printer and using the usb port.

[kampl]

The printserver specs should say what type of connections it will accept in so far as connecting the printer. The SOHO stuff I've seen usually accepts parallel and/or USB connections to the printer.

[fergnetserv]

I have installed 4or 5 print servers and it has been my experience with printservers that you do not need a networkable printer. Just one that will connect to the printserver in question. I have not done a wireless printserver so I would be interested in your installation experience.

[ghporter]

Experience with Linksys is a valid reason for staying with them, though it is not required for interoperability.

There should be no difference, from a printing point of view, between a wired and wireless print server. The real requirement is to have a printer with a parallel port-that's all.

[kennedy]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but AFAIK...

A networkable printer has the printserver built-in... if you have one of those, you don't need the printserver (unless you want superior printserving functionality, but then there's no point to paying for the networkable option).

Beyond a parallel port, I think the primary thing you want to think about in printer selection is compatibility with the machines you want to print from. The print server doesn't avoid the driver issue, AFAIK.

Sooo, I *think* the ideal for serving a network of PCs and Macs is a postscript laser printer. I think all machines have a PostScript printer driver.

[kennedy]

BTW, what's the cheapest good print server available?

[poulh]

I guess I'm surprised that those linksys print servers work with macs. Is the "print server protocol" opened? what is it called?

also, how do i get my usb printer drivers onto the linksys print server?

sorry if these are dumb questions.

[ghporter]

kennedy,

If your router includes a printserver you don't need a separate one-unless you want to serve multiple printers.

poulh and everyone,

A network printserver, like the one in most printserver equipped routers, uses the standard Unix IP printing protocol, which I believe is native in MacOS way, WAY back. It's something that you can install in a Windows machine (Win98 and up/WinNT 4 and up) as well. Since it's a Unix protocol, a Linux machine naturally can use printers served in this way as well. This makes these printservers as "cross-platform" as you can get nowadays.

[poulh]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
A network printserver, like the one in most printserver equipped routers, uses the standard Unix IP printing protocol.

Thanks GHPorter.

You explained how my mac would talk to the printserver, but how does the printserver talk to the printer w/out its drivers?

Do I send that info to the printserver when I want to print?

[ghporter]

These printservers are parallel only. I don't know of any network device other than the AirPort Extreme Base Station that supports networked USB printing. If you have a USB-only printer, I don't know how to go about sharing it without sharing it directly through a computer.

As for what drivers are needed, the standard driver package that supports printers directly connected to your computer will include the Unix IP protocol driver for that printer.

[kampl]

Hawking Tech, HP and Linksys make printservers that have USB ports for printer connectivity. Not all are inexpensive (HP, surprise), but Linksys and Hawking tend to be reasonable.

[ghporter]

Originally posted by kampl:
Hawking Tech, HP and Linksys make printservers that have USB ports for printer connectivity. Not all are inexpensive (HP, surprise), but Linksys and Hawking tend to be reasonable.

I'd never seen those... And it's often hard to find anything from Hawking advertised outside of very geeky tech stores, so I'm not totally amazed about that.

Anyway, though I have no experience with these, I'd imagine that any USB printserver would try to work the same way as a parallel printserver-it's all in the hardware, and the cable is merely how the hardware does its thing. (I say this with the caveat that I'm using something called 'logic' here; take this opinion at face value, and not as anything even remotely authoritative.)

[kampl]

I suppose Microcenter or Amazon.com may be considered geeky by some. Most products that I bothered to look at, since I use HP in most cases or standalone antiquated computers for such jobs, have shown connectivity via LPR or SMB. Both I believe are available in Mac OS X with the exception of decent access to SMB print queues, I haven't tried in awhile for SMB with any product.

[meem]

thanks for all the great info guys. I'm heading to Microcenter tomorrow to check out prices. glad to hear it working with a mac shouldnt be a problem I thought it would be which is why i wanted a paralell port printserver so I could have the usb free to hook my mac up to but it may be easier than I thought.
Thanks again

[John Strung]

Make sure you get something you can return. I am not convinced you will find using a print server that easy. There are all sorts of threads on this on the Apple Discussions Forum at http://discussions.info.apple.com/

Do a search for "print server" making sure you included the quotes so you get a phrase search. You will find that people are having all sorts of difficulties with this, particularly if they are trying to share non-postcript printers.

[poulh]

So just so I'm totally clear, this linksys wireless print server can be set up in my home and my mac, running jaguar, can see it?

http://linksys.com/products/product....7&prid=440

[kampl]

I would say yes, particularly since the userguide says it supports Appletalk for some ungodly reason (I hate that protocol). I would still however follow John's suggestion and make sure they have a decent return policy if you run into issues. It sure sounds Mac friendly, but companies like to tout how cross platform their gear whether it is or not.

[meem]

I just bought the one mentioned above by poulh. will be hooking it up later tonight. I'll let ya know how it goes

[meem]

well its going pretty crappy. Nothing seems to be working. I have a feeling that I'm Missing something very basic. If anyone out there has any advice lemme know.

Based on Linksys intrsuction printer in connected via paralel to printserver. printserver is connected to wireless router via ethernet to one of its four ports.

So on my dads Win XP machine I installed the BiAdmin Utility. Test page doesn't work. go to install print driver setup is askes me for the printer name what do I put in I tried a milion thing s but nother seems to work I think this is where I'm stuck.

I'm totally clueless as to what I'm missing so if someone could help

PS the wireless signal for the printserver is no existant which makes me think the device is malfunctioning but there was something about setting the device up first before wireless would kick in.

[kennedy]

I don't have any direct knowledge of your printserver, but you sound desperate, so I thought I'd volunteer a bit until more knowledgable people are available...

Originally posted by meem:
PS the wireless signal for the printserver is no existant which makes me think the device is malfunctioning but there was something about setting the device up first before wireless would kick in.

The wireless signal for the printserver? But the printserver you are using is wired... right?

The first question is "Can you 'ping' the printserver from your computer?"

I'd keep the "wireless" issues out of the equation by plugging my computer directly into one of the other ports on your wireless router (or even directly to the printserver... you might need a crossover cable though). When you have it working wired, then try it wireless.

[meem]

thanks for responding Kennedy.

I actually got it sorta working but it's not where it need to be.
To be a little more clear... The Printserver itself is wireless but it also has a ethernet port which according to the manual is for setup purposes. The exact type is http://linksys.com/products/product....7&prid=440

I can ping the print server but I dont understand how it will retain and IP adress since its dhcp and I'm gonna move(unplug it) later. How do I keep its IP the same after this is all setup?

[striker100]

I'm using both the Linksys WPS11 (parallel port) and PPS1UW (usb print server with 2 PC's and 2 Macs wirelessly.

So first, you hardwired the print server to the router & attached to cable from the printer to the print server. If you ran the bi-admin utility and it didn't find the print server the first thing you should try is to hold down the reset button on the print server for 10 seconds, then unplug the print server/plug it back in and run the biadmin utility again.

If that does not work, to get the print server in the biadmin at least temporarily wired so you can change the settings this is what you do:

Go the control panel/network connections.
right click on local area connection and go to properties.
Highlight Internet Protocol TCP/IP, then click properties.
Choose the following IP address:
IP address: 192.168.1.10
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Leave gateway blank

Click o.k. to back out and then go to the start menu and click on run and type in CMD, then press enter.

Type: ipconfig/release then click enter
Type: ipconfig/renew then click enter

check to see that the ip address for the local area connection is now 192.168.1.10.

Now try running the biadmin utility again.

You should see the print server now.
You can now go to configuration and change the TCP/IP and wireless settings.

Do NOT FORGET to go back to Local Area Connection and change the fixed IP address to Obtain an IP Address Automatically when you are through.

If you have any questions or are uncomfortable chaqnging any settings I suggest that you call Linksys tech support.
They answer very quickly and though you can get bad and good techs eventually you'll get through it.

This is how I got my WPS11 to work.

[meem]

I have always been able to get to the BiAdmin to see the server but what so I change wireless settings to? Infrastructuree seems to do nothing changing to Adhoc seems to see my Moms computer 2 rooms away but not the wireless access point which is only 2 feet away I have successfully change the printservers IP to 192.168.1.110. As I can get to it via web browser.


I guess I'm probably a little to frustrated with this thing right now I'll be calling Linksys a little later.

Thanks

[meem]

just wanted to say that I got the thing working on all the XP boxes. thanks for everyones help.
Still having some trouble printing with the mac as since (i think) the printer is hooked up via parallel to the printer server and all the drivers ,samsungs and ghostscript, seem to be for the usb side of it. but thats a topic for another forum i think. I'm still ok with this for now as I said in my first post. Just wanted people to know you may have to get a usb print server for the Samsung ML-1210 to work right