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Need to clear up some things about a CUPS server for Windows clients

B

Brazen

Diamond Member
I'm in the process of moving from a Windows 2000 print server to a CUPS print server on linux. I can't find any information comparing the different protocol choices and the different driver options.

So I'm wondering if there is any advantage with either using the CUPS native IPP protocol or going through Samba and using the SMB protocol to connect the Windows clients to the print server. I've read that the newer IPP protocol is much "better" and I've also read that the IPP protocol on Windows is buggy and unreliable. I'm wondering what people here have experienced and if anyone no of any features I will be missing out on if I go with one instead of the other.

The next thing is what driver should I use on the Windows clients. As I understand it, I can set it up to use a CUPS driver on Windows and let CUPS translate the printing to the printer, or I can use each printers native Windows driver on the the client. Again, is either one more stable, have better performance, or have better features? Will I be sacrificing anything by choosing one instead of the other? I've also read that I can use some generic Postscript driver on the Windows clients, but I'm not sure how that fits in to the picture.
 
Luckily I don't print much but I've always just used the Windows print driver. IPP seems to work but it's a bit of a PITA since you have to know the URL and type it manually into the add printer wizard since Windows doesn't do IPP browsing but otherwise I didn't really notice any problems.
 
It does look like going with smb is going to make it easier in the long run, particularly because you can have automatic driver installs that way (which is pretty much a hard requirement as all our printers are managed by logon scripts). I do think I will go with the CUPS driver though, as I found a thorough document on samba.org that says you get to use more management features on the CUPS server when you use the CUPS driver on the Windows clients and it suggested that you are likely to have better stability with the CUPS driver. http://www.samba.org/samba/doc...ion/CUPS-printing.html
 
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