Demonstration: Raspberry Pi Running as an AirPrint Server

A few weeks ago, I wrote about setting up the Raspberry Pi to function as an AirPrint Server. This has the effect of allowing Apple’s ios devices to print to regular unix printers (that are accessible to CUPS) using the avahi-daemon for announcements. I’ve gotten all of this to work reliably on the Raspberry Pi and have been testing it out for the last several weeks. I know I promised a tutorial, but it has been rather slow going. The tutorial is coming soon – but today, I have a small video demonstration which shows how well this works.

The one thing I have noticed is that printing via AirPrint is a little slower than printing natively to the printer. My reasoning for that is twofold: One the limited processing power on the Raspberry Pi may be affecting the PDF rasterization time. And two, my Raspberry Pi is connected to a wireless ethernet bridge (802.11g) while the iPad is connected to the wireless access point (802.11n) so there is likely some lag caused by wireless network signals. All things considered, I am currently able to print from the iPad to my network printer (which itself is not AirPrint compatible) having spent on $35. This is the power of the Raspberry Pi!

Stay tuned for the tutorial – it’s on it’s way.

 

6 thoughts on “Demonstration: Raspberry Pi Running as an AirPrint Server

  1. SD123

    Waiting patiently for the tutorial to come out. Really good use for a RPi. Might combine this function with NAS.

    Reply
    1. Rohan Kapoor

      Thanks! I'm not sure how well the RPi would do for a NAS because of the USB bus having both the ethernet and the hdd, but it would certainly make a nice, small, efficient one.

      Reply
  2. johnkelin

    The information that you have shared is really useful for me as i don't have deep knowledge about servers and their management. SQL Server for Linux , based on SQL Server leadconcept(.)com/client-server-application.development.html 2016, provides the ability to develop and deploy intelligent applications on a single platform for data management and business intelligence. Microsoft’s announced support for the Linux family of operating systems in the new version of SQL Server is the next step for the corporation to enter the Linux market after signing a partnership agreement with RedHat and Canonical. Anyways, once again thanks for sharing the nice piece of stuff with us.

    Reply

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