[school-discuss] Print server suggestions

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

I've been working on this all weekend and am finally ready to admit that
I need some advice.

I'm working on building a network for a local community center using
older hardware we've acquired from various places.  One of the things I
need to do is network some old laser printers (Panasonic KX-P4420s). 
For that I plan to use a cast-off PC as a print server, essentially as a
great big printer NIC.  The PC I have for the job is a Compaq Prolinea
Net1/33s.  That's a 486/33 with 16 MB RAM and a ~270 MB HD.

I'd like to put a minimal Linux install on it and then include something
like CUPS for printer support.  I installed TINY Linux on it just fine
(the system doesn't have a CD-ROM).  TINY is based on Slackware, so I
looked for CUPS packages for Slackware.  I didn't find any.  No problem,
I'll download the source and compile.  Whoops, no development tools on
TINY.  No problem, I'll go to Slackware and download the "d" development
package and install it.  Whoops, that takes more space than I have
available.

OK, how about doing a net install of Debian?  CUPS (and cupsomatic,
which is important for the printer support I need) is included in
woody.  CUPS is also in potato, but not cupsomatic.  So, after going
through the base install and using dselect to add the bits required to
run CUPS and cupsomatic, I find that I _still_ don't have enough space
on the HD.

This can't be as difficult a task as I'm making it.  What do you all
suggest?  Is CUPS the problem here?  Should I be looking at LPRng
instead?  Is there some other approach I should be taking?  Let me know
what you think I should do.

-- 
Doug Loss          As long as I have you there is just
drloss@suscom.net  one other thing I'll always need--
(570) 326-3987     tremendous self control.
                          Ashleigh Brilliant