Re: OT: USB<->Ethernet printer server for router

Dotan Cohen wrote:

On 01/12/2007, Fred Erickson <frederickson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 14:16 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:

Hi all, this is not a Fedora question, but I am abusing the list's
collective knowledge :)

Our home network has two Fedora machines and a Ubuntu machine on a
four-port router. As none of the machines are 'always on' machines,
the poor USB printer is plugged into whichever one needs to print. I
recently saw a device for connecting a serial printer to an ethernet
port on the router, thereby giving the printer a local IP address and
any connected computer could print to it. With NAT, even a remote
computer could print to such a printer (actually a feature that we
would use a lot in our home, as I am often at the university and I
send documents home for the wife to print).

Does anyone know of a similar product for USB printers? I've scoured
Ebay but found nothing. I'd love to hear of anyone who has experience
with such devices, and who could describe possible drawbacks that I
have not considered.

Thanks in advance.

Dotan Cohen

Here is a link to the print server I have been using for a couple of
years -- seems to work very well. I have had to re-set it one time I
believe. Think it cost $30 or so on sale at CompUSA.

Thanks. Now that I have the keywords I found several models on Ebay.
They all come with a driver CD for Windows. Is this necessary? Can
Linux be configured to work without the disk? Note that my HP
Officejet 4200 works fine in KDE as KDE comes with the drivers
installed for it already, but a friend's Lexmark E120 does _not_ work
in KDE because there are no Linux drivers for it. What is the driver
situation for these print servers?

Thanks.

Dotan Cohen

Bob Goodwin