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CUPS - Common Unix Printing System
Background Information CUPS is developed and maintained by Easy Software Products, which is co-owned by the author of the book, Mike Sweet.
The complete table of contents for CUPS - Common Unix Printing System, aka "The Octopus Book" can be found here. The CUPS web site also contains errata lists and example code. In addition, Easy Software Products sells a companion CD for the book, only available on their web site.
Who should read it? If you do not use a printer with Unix or Linux, or if you do and you are perfectly happy with the results (maybe because the distro came with all the right stuff pre-installed), this book is not for you.
However, if you are serious about printing, if you are considering replacing the outdated legacy printing system that came with your Unix or Linux or if you are a developer even remotely interested in Linux/Unix printing, this book is for you.
Did I mention that the Octopus Book is also very helpful when it comes to understanding IPP, the Internet Printing Protocol? If you tried to read through all the RFCs on IPP out there and managed to understand IPP afterwards -- congratulations! I tried that, failed, bought the Octopus Book and finally understood.
How will it help users and admins? This book will show you how to install, administer and use CUPS. While the documentation that comes with CUPS is very good already, having everything in one handy package has its advantages, especially as the book goes into more detail than the on-line documentation. In addition, this book will explain to you in great detail how to extend CUPS. If you've ever wanted to be able to directly print some rather unusual file type -- or need a mechanism to create PDF files and email a copy of each PDF whenever you print them to a certain printer, this book will tell you how to do that.Anything for developers? Sure. Complete API documentation with loads of example code. Everything from "How can I add good printing support to my application" to "How do I write a printer driver?" is in there. Likes and dislikes Of course, no book is perfect. This book comes close, but you should know that a lot of it is already available for free on the CUPS web site. It also lacks details on how to rip the old printing system out of your legacy Unix -- but if you've got root, this is something you should know anyhow.
Another thing - it is not as funny as Terry Pratchett. But I can live with that.
As you might have noticed, I really like this book. It definitely made my work much easier -- I work for a manufacturer of (among other things) large printers and this (by now well-worn) book has been granted dedicated space on a very crowded desktop.
You can purchase CUPS - Common Unix Printing System from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Of course not, god knows that reading a man page or a how-to is much easier than an illustrated bound guide.
What the hell kind of question is this? Of course it makes sense, especially if you don't know much or anything about the software. What do you think that everyone is some kind of "programmer" that will just take the source and read it to find out what it does? Of course not, cups is fairly easy to setup especially with all the gui's to configure it, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't hurt to read a book on the subject to make it a little easier.
This might shock ya, but it also "makes sense" to click that little "Donate" button on GPL'd software websites. It's not as common on some would let on. Supporting open source is more than just saying "I use open source".
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Everyone has spent the last decade complaining that Community-maintained software has poor or no documentation. A good reason for that is that its more fun to code than to write down in english what you did after the fact. If I have to shell out money to entice somebody to write good documentation for something I use, then I will definitely do it.
CUPS coupled with Samba and OpenLDAP now provides a one-stop replacement for authentication and file/print for most organisations currently running a MS back-end. Great to see some dead treeware on the subject
I must admit, I've never been very good at setting up printers in Unix. If I don't have access to the Redhat printconf gui utility, I'm pretty lost. This is bad considering that I'm a unix admin at heart. I guess I've never really had the need to configure many printers on Unix boxes, and when I do, it is always conveniently enough a RedHat box.
I might just have to pick this book up. Anyone have any other suggestions on how to demystify printing in Unix? I understand how to use the lpr command, and how to kill jobs with lprm and list them with lpstat, but I'm pretty much a noob at configuring printers. A complete guide on how it all works would be nice. I'm pretty sketchy on the whole "filters" idea, and wouldn't know where to start to set up CUPS or LPD if all I had was a command line available.
I hate that CUPS... it's bulky and cumbersome to administer.
I don't have a network of users usually, for occasional printing it's an awfully complex system.
You don't need books about GPL software. Just read the source code. Riiight.
In this day and age, why should anyone have to read a book about *printing*? Press the print button. It's usually the one with the little picture of the printer on it. End of story. If it's any more complicated than that, then you're doing something wrong.
That'd be like reading a book titled "The Gas Pedal - Friend or Foe?".
Mod this retard down, OSX isn't linux.
That was his point, the reviewer stated that if you use Linux you're already using this. He was pointing out that fairly narrow view, there's more out there than just Linux.
That's bogus. Anyone who has installed a system on his or her home computer will have root, but nowhere near all of them will know where all the components that have to be ripped out are located. I know I don't.
That said, I suppose replacing a legacy system with CUPS might not be considered on-topic for this book... but there seems to be a niche for more generic books about Unix printing that would cover such things.
CJV
Never knock great documentation. I would have to say that one of the major problems with open source software today is that many of the programs do not have enough great documentation.
-redptam-