[Tarcat]

Up until this week I hadn't owned a wireless equipped computer so I have no expierence with wireless networks. My question is this. I have a basic Brother laser printer and want to set up a wireless network where both my laptop (MacBook) and my desktop (iMac G5 w/o wireless) can print. Can I leave it hooked to the desktop and print to it with a generic linksys router (or similar) or must I buy the airport with the USB to be able to print from both?

[MRTrauffer]

I think the easiest way would be to connect the printer via USB to your iMac and then enable printer sharing on your iMac.

SystemPreferences/Sharing/Services/Printer Sharing

[ghporter]

Yes, you can do this all through any router. The traffic is all TCP/IP, so it doesn't matter who made the box, just as long as it handles it properly-which just about any consumer-level router should do just fine. Linksys routers WILL do fine with this; I have one handling my network right now.

You may find some issues with sharing a USB-connected printer. Not all manufacturers write their drivers so that they share well. My Brother HL-2040 has both parallel and serial ports, so I connected it to a parallel print server on my network. It shares fine this way.