I run my Maker Space's Network 2D printing services. I have a common inkjet printer connected to a device that is connected to the printer and serving it via CUPS and Samba.
I have successfully got Windows, Linux, and OS X printing. I have two problems. Drivers and Configuration.
My current solution to drivers, is that I tell people bring their own drivers. it works for Linux users because CUPS seems to always comes with the right drivers and both ipp and samba get auto discovered. Windows, it has working drivers installed but you have to pick the driver yourself, which can cause issues for some people. OS X should have the print driver, but I am not sure because I only seen one Mac print successfully, but it was with minimal work. It was only after adding the printer.
Local configuration it probably the biggest problem. It is BYOD, so if anyone does anything that would break their own printing. It would be kind of annoying to trouble shoot every problem someone can create, especially around creative types. With Macs I have one person that can't print remotely but can print locally and they get a security error, but they won't send me a screen shot or an error code so I can troubleshoot it effectively. I also don't have a OS X machine that I have print administrator access to so I can do testing.
I would like there to be an abstract driver so I reduce some of the issues. I believe I could abuse https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Virtual_PDF_Printer and combine it with a service that watches a directory and sends the pdf to the print queue, but that would be combining a couple of hacks.
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