Universal Print Relay Driver

What is it?

uprd is a driver meant to allow printing across a network on different platforms where a client may not have a native driver for the printer on the server, or the native driver doesn't communicate properly with the server.

Why?

I have on at least two occasions run across this problem; once with trying to get Linux to print through a printer on a Win9X machine.. the drivers communicated but consistently crashed the Windows driver. The other time was with a newer printer that only came with a 2K/XP driver, and other 9X machines on the network could not print to it. I can't imagine that other people haven't come across a similar situation, and had to look toward a commercial solution or not use their desired platform. I seek with this driver to alleviate that problem.

How does it work?

The idea is that uprd will function both as a virtual driver and a dummy application. It will take print input from a native application or another uprd on the network, spool the data as a PostScript file, then turn around and send the print data to another print driver, either on the local system or a uprd served on another computer on the network. Where data is output will have been predetermined by the administrator after install. Setup of the driver should occur as much as possible through the native OS interface. All data input, transfer, and output should occur through native OS interfaces.

Where will it work (System Requirements)?

uprd is planned to be released as binary versions for Win9X, Win2K/XP, and CUPS. Source will be available with each version. I'd also like to see versions compiled for Win 3.11 and MacOSX, but I'm not committing to those. Short of a supported interface, uprd will also require twice the size of any print job free on all hard drives involved in the relay.

Where can I get it?

Right now, the project is simply being planned. Once compiled in a working order, it will be available where the project is hosted on Sourceforge.