Slashdot Mirror
USB Switches?
RukhWunder asks: "I have two computers and one USB printer. Is there a USB splitter or something around so I can connect them both to the printer? Networking the computers is out of the question because they are on the university network already." There was an earlier question about USB on KVM switches that was done last year, however I too would be curious to note if there are switches for just USB devices.
Why not just use that network to carry your printer traffic? Set up one computer with the printer. The other computer prints to that printer just like it would print to any other kind of network printer. Of course, you need to set up your hosts.allow and host.deny to only let authorized systems print.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
search for 'usb switch' and the first link that comes up... usbgear.net. $26.50 fer four ports. pretty cool.
This: http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/cs102u.htm
It's a K[v]M, but it'll work with printers.
You could get a usb direct connect cable and share the printer over that network, then you wouldn't have to push any buttons, but I'm not sure about the linux driver support for USB direct connect. The switch is still probably the easiest answer.
KidA
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
I know about USB hot plugging, but this makes me confused. In the specific case of printers, how is this different then a parallel, ethernet, serial, ... printer?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Belkin makes EXACTLY this sort of device. In fact, the box is labeled "USB Switch". I saw it yesterday when I was going to pick up my Mac OS X 10.1 CD's at CompUSA... (Hey, I don't like CrapUSA either, but they had the CD's...)
:-)
I was thinking to myself, "Hey, cool, a switched fabric for USB! Now my subwoofer won't share bandwidth with my digital camera!" But that isn't what they meant.
Good luck!
--DM