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Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 15:33:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Simone Paddock <simone@oreilly.com>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: O'Reilly releases "Network Printing"


O'Reilly's Latest Release Untangles Confusing Web of Printer Management
for System Administrators

Sebastopol, CA--Computers were supposed to create the paperless office,
remember? We know that's not true. The Internet has made more
information more easily available to computer users than ever before,
resulting in more printouts than ever before. "From the user's
perspective, printing is still fundamental. Paper continues to be a
common way of sharing files, and paper still forms the basis of our
legal system. Most people print out agreements, account statements,
transaction confirmations and of course information found on the Web,"
says Matthew Gast, co-author of the just-released "Network Printing"
(O'Reilly, $34.95). "In spite of its importance, almost nothing
practical has been written about the problem of printing. Many books
have been written about narrow pieces of the problem, but nothing
addresses the problem as comprehensively as 'Network Printing', taking
into account that real networks have many different types of clients
and printer hardware."

Recent years have also seen a proliferation in the number of platforms
that system administrators must support. In addition to the Windows
operating systems, administrators may also have to deal with
Macintoshes, a few flavors of Unix (Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, and Linux),
and possibly NetWare. "Print services are typically a tangled web with
a server for each client system and latent interdependencies that can
break at any time", explains Gast. "'Network Printing' helps
administrators untangle this growing web by unifying services on a
single platform."

"Network Printing" details how to set up print servers on Unix (BSD and
SVR4) and Linux systems, and opening them up to handle printing from
Windows, Apple and Novell users. It offers thorough discussions of
LPRng, the next generation spooler for Unix and Linux; Samba's printer
sharing; Netatalk, a free implementation of the AppleTalk protocol; and
ncpfs, a Linux implementation of the NetWare protocols. The book also
shows how to get printers to boot correctly on a network, using
solutions like bootp and DHCP; how to manage printers remotely using
SNMP; and how to set up a network-wide printer configuration repository
with LDAP.

"Network Printing" is an indispensable tool for the overworked system
administrator who's responsible for making sure that documents get from
the client to the printer, no questions asked.


Chapter 5, The Next Generation Berkeley Spooler: LPRng, is available
free online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/netprint/chapter/ch05.html

For more information about the book, including Table of Contents,
index, author bio, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/netprint/

For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596000383.jpg


# # #


Network Printing
By Matthew Gast & Todd Radermacher
1st Edition, October 2000
ISBN 0-596-00038-3, 304 pages, $34.95 (US)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
http://www.oreilly.com