Networked Versus Local Printers

Depending on organizational needs, it may be unnecessary to assign one printer to each member of your organization. Such overlap in expenditure can eat into allotted budgets, leaving less capital for other necessities. While local printers attached via parallel or USB cable to every workstation are an ideal solution, it is not often feasible economically.

Printer manufacturers have addressed this need by developing departmental (or workgroup) printers. These machines are usually durable, fast, and have long-life consumables. Workgroup printers usually are attached to a print server, a standalone device (such as a reconfigured workstation) which handles print jobs and routes output to the proper printer when available (although, some printers include built-in or add-on network interfaces that eliminate the need for a dedicated print server). Print servers can use either the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) available in Red Hat Linux via the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) or through Samba. Samba is particularly useful for heterogeneous environments where departments may use different operating systems. More information about configuring Red Hat Linux for use as a print server can be found in the Section called Printer Sharing and Access Control.