Jeremy Allison: HP ships Linux and Samba 2.2 based print appliance.

[ Thanks to Jeremy
Allison for this link. ]

Jeremy Allison of the Samba team writes:

I know it doesn’t get top billing here and they don’t mention
what it’s actually running :-). But down in this link :

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/20mar01a.htm

HP mentions:

“The second-generation HP Print Server Appliance 4200 features a
point and print function that automates the installation of
printers. The appliance off-loads spooling and printing services
from general purpose file servers to improve IT management,
installation, administration and optimization of network printing
services. The HP Print Server Appliance 4200 supports Microsoft
Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, Millennium and UNIX clients. It replaces
the HP Jetdirect 4000 print appliance, which was the industry’s
first appliance server of its kind.”

HP’s printer appliance division has given me permission to
finally talk publicly about the work the Samba Team (via contract
with VA Linux and Linuxcare) have been doing with HP on this.

This appliance is based on a Linux kernel running Samba 2.2 on
top, and HP collaberated with us (and donated *lots* of new code to
Samba) to provide Windows NT auto driver download (point and print)
functionality, which is already available in the alpha snapshots of
Samba 2.2 (and via CVS of course), and will be generally available
once Samba 2.2 ships.

HP testing has really beaten the Samba 2.2 printing code up and
improved it immensely – we’ve tested this sucker with over 10,000
simultaneous print jobs in a queue. It works (although slowly with
that many jobs :-).

The HP print appliance people have been a *delight* to work
with, these are people who really *GET* Open Source/Free
software.

Thanks HP !

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team