Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!silver!hughes
From: hughes@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Network Printing
Message-ID: <44500002@silver>
Date: 2 Aug 89 19:27:00 GMT
Organization: Indiana University CSCI, Bloomington
Lines: 37
Nf-ID: #N:silver:44500002:000:1718
Nf-From: silver.bacs.indiana.edu!hughes    Aug  2 14:27:00 1989


We have a need at Indiana University to implement a TCP/IP-based
network printing system for our statewide network.  Such printing
services must be made available to a mixed and wide variety of
vendor's machines and operating systems (with the common denominator
being, again, TCP/IP).  Included in this mix are VAXes and MicroVAXes
running VMS (with Wollongong's product), ULTRIX, and Berkely 4.3; 
IBM mainframes; Sun, NeXT, and Apollo workstations; and a few others 
to boot.  (Support for PC's and Mac's would be nice too...)

We know about the LPR capabilities under most UNIX implementations
(and coming in the next release of Wollongong), and have been using
it in a few places on the net.  But does the collective family
of LPR/LPD/LPQ/LPC/LPRM provide enough functionality *and* reliability
to satisfy most users (and implementors) for such a large base?  And 
is the maintenance of dozens or hundreds of local printcap files an
administrator's nightmare?

And if this seems to be the most viable solution, is anyone
aware of enhancements to this suite, possibly developed at 
another university (or even available commercially), that we 
might be interested in?  

Any information at all would be appreciated and investigated.

Please respond via email.  I will post a summary of solutions
if so requested.  Thanks in advance.

          =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
               Larry Hughes, Senior Programmer
                University Computing Services
               Indiana University, Bloomington

          Internet: hughes@jade.bacs.indiana.edu
                    hughes@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
          Bitnet  : hughes@iubacs
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