Fwd: Workgroup printing, please!

[awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

> Anyone know of a good package for doing workgroup-style printing?
> I have the following requirements:
> 1. Start each print job with a banner page, with at least the time and
>    date, as well as the originating host name.

lpd does this by default,  only Redhat puts the :sh: flag in printcap, 
by default, which disables banner pages.  Take out the :sh: and see 
what happens.

> 2. Keep page counts, make them available to other software.

What do you mean by "make them available".  LPD/Linux support printer 
accouting, which can track pages, bytes, per user, queue, host, etc...

> 3. We'll need to inquire periodically (from another app) if there have 
been
>    print jobs since the last check, but almost anything will do, since 
this
>    part of the system has yet to be coded.

Hmm, not too sure about this one, but I'd wager printer accounting 
would cover this as well.  Or else simply check the last update time 
stamp on the .status or .lock files in the printers queue directory.

> What we want to do is notify the people near the print server that 
they
> have to look at the printer and pick something out of it for a 
particular
> user (who is using one of the workstations).

Samba can be rigged to send win popup messages pretty easy if these 
are win9x/NT clients with something like a postexec script, UNIX print 
filters can dispatch e-mail messages, etc...