Some Linux distributions make sharing printers far easier than others. If your distribution doesn’t include a GUI for printer sharing, you’ll have to use the command line.
You might have read about my recent spate of distro hopping, where I landed with Ubuntu Budgie as my primary operating system. A few days after installing the OS, I realized I’d forgotten that I always share my Public folder to my internal network, so I can easily share files between machines (without having to email them or bounce them between machines and any given cloud service).
I quickly realized that Ubuntu Budgie not only didn’t have a simple means of sharing folders to a network, it also didn’t include a GUI method for sharing printers. Given my wife is always printing out knitting patterns, return labels, and other bits of information (and the only printer in the house is attached to my desktop), I had to get that printer shared before I was inundated with things to print for her.
Fortunately, this isn’t my first rodeo with printer sharing in Linux, so it only took me a couple of minutes to get that up and running. If you have a similar need, let me show you how easy it is to share a printer to your LAN with CUPS (Common Unix Printer Service) and Samba, which provides file and print services between clients across various operating systems.
