Adding network Printer for Linux Systems

Adding a local USB printer for Linux is pretty straightforward of late. Plug it in and Kuzu automatically comes up and walk you through configuring it. CUPS seems to work pretty well when Linux can talk to the printer directly.

Adding a network printer is slightly more complicated.   There is no "Plug-n-Play".   In my case, the printer is hooked up to a Netgear WGPS660 print server.   That adds an additional complication.  This is a wonderful little gadget. You can hook up two USB printer and connect to it wirelessly. It also has 4 100/10 ethernet ports. It thus also serves as a wireless bridge.

Netgear provided a software to run on PC to help setting printer on print server. It is pretty painless. The only somewhat technical issue is to set the print server with a fixed IP address. DHCP could break the IP ports set up on computers when the wireless router or print server is reset, and IP address for print server could change.

The software only runs under Windows, but setting up the printers with CUPS turns out to be even easier.

On Linux systems, open web browser and

http://localhost:631

get you to CUPS.   Note: Ubuntu disables this access.   You need to use the GUI to configure. 

Then you can add printer.    Use IP address/L1, L2 as the port for Netgear.

The only complication is in cases when there is no exisiting driver.   CUPS.org is a good place to start looking for PPD files, the equivalent of Linux Drivers.   Find the right PPD, and printing is just a piece of cake.