Folks, I recently got a new USB printer (HP 3847) with my laptop, but it's been lying in a box, because I have absolutely no clue what print servers are compatible with it, if any. I've used a reasonable assortment of printer sharing methods in my time (SMB, CUPS, JetDirect, TCP/IP, etc.), but my knowledge is just zero when it comes to USB printers, as opposed to parallel. I also don't know the story about Linux compatibility, although I would assume it uses plain old SMB.
What's the story with USB print servers these days? Is it really just plug and play now, or do I have to worry about whether my printer is GDI or some other insanity? And, no, I don't want to use SMB or CUPS or whatever to do the sharing. I just want an embedded device that I don't need to worry about. If there aren't any print servers available, I'll probably just sell the damn thing. I might give in and just get a Linksys NSLU2 to do it all (there is a certain amount of sexiness to that solution), but my life is complicated enough without that, and it's a somewhat expensive solution. I know I'm losing my geek cred by not doing things the hard way, but when you're dual-booting, using a desktop to share stuff is kind of dicey. -DMZ
