Samba's printing support always relies on the installed print subsystem of the UNIX OS it runs on. Samba is a middleman. It takes print files from Windows (or other SMB) clients and passes them to the real printing system for further processing; therefore, it needs to communicate with both sides: the Windows print clients and the UNIX printing system. Hence, we must differentiate between the various client OS types, each of which behave differently, as well as the various UNIX print subsystems, which themselves have different features and are accessed differently.

This chapter deals with the traditional way of UNIX printing. The next chapter covers in great detail the more modern CUPS.