Airport Express and Linux printing

[Krasnall]

Hello!

I'm buying my first PowerBook next week. I also want to have a WLAN in my house, and Airport Express is probably the best choice since it provides wireless printer and HiFi access.

I'm using an ADSL router, which is connected to a switch. Curently, two Linux boxes are connect to that switch. I also got a Canon i250 USB printer, shared by one of the Linux machines.

I plan to connect my switch with the Airport Express via LAN cable and share wireless internet. Is it possible? I also want to use my printer with my PCs and my new Powerbook. When I'll connect my printer to the Airport Express would it be possible to access the printer from a wired LAN? Would it be possible to print from Linux? (there are Canon i250 drivers for Linux - CUPS)

Thanks for response. And sorry for my English ;-)

 

[ITASOR]

Your English is better than most native speakers. I have had luck printing to a shared printer over APexpress using Ubuntu Linux. I no longer have it to test it anymore, but it's worth a try....APexpress's are pretty cool, I wish I didn't sell mine.

 

[Westside guy]

Back when I ran Linux (Red Hat, later Fedora) I didn't have an Airport Express - but CUPS worked well going to other IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) printers. I can't imagine it'd be any different with the AE printer, as long as there are CUPS drivers - and you've already said they exist.

I imagine it'd be a bigger challenge if you were trying to use lpd.

As far as wireless goes - I don't think there are any 802.11g wireless drivers at all that work under Linux, so you'll have to use 802.11b. I'd think you could run the AE in b/g mode, so the Powerbook could still connect at g speeds; but I'm not 100% sure. Practically speaking, it's not going to matter speed-wise in most situations.