05-15-2007, 03:00 AM
As far as the printer with network capabilities is concerned, most of what's needed has already been said. However, one other thing to keep in mind is that depending on the printer, you will need to ensure that it has a static IP on LAN, so that its address will stay constant across network downtimes.
Unless your printer is of the variety that actually has a built-in print server that automatically configures itself as a Shared Windows Printer on your network, you will need to go to each machine that needs to use that printer and configure them to ask for the printer at the proper IP address. Consult your printer's manual on how to do this.
As for your USB-only printers, again, a dedicated print server is required. Personally, I have a dedicated Linux server which handles all the printer sharing, as well as multimedia storing. I current have two printers (soon to be two printers and a scanner, as soon as I get around to it) shared in a network for 5 different machines, each running a different version of Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Unless your printer is of the variety that actually has a built-in print server that automatically configures itself as a Shared Windows Printer on your network, you will need to go to each machine that needs to use that printer and configure them to ask for the printer at the proper IP address. Consult your printer's manual on how to do this.
As for your USB-only printers, again, a dedicated print server is required. Personally, I have a dedicated Linux server which handles all the printer sharing, as well as multimedia storing. I current have two printers (soon to be two printers and a scanner, as soon as I get around to it) shared in a network for 5 different machines, each running a different version of Windows, OS X, and Linux.