CUPS - Common Unix Printing System

McSnarf writes "What is CUPS, anyhow? And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software? CUPS is an acronym for Common Unix Printing System, software that was written to replace the rather powerless printing system found in Unix and Linux. If you run any current Linux distro, the chances are that you already use CUPS for printing." That being the case, read on for McSnarf's review of Michael R. Sweet's book on the topic. CUPS - Common Unix Printing System author Michael R. Sweet pages 650 publisher SAMS Publishing rating 10 reviewer McSnarf ISBN 0672321963 summary More than just a complete reference to CUPS

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However, if you are serious about printing, if you are considering replacing the outdated legacy printing system that came with your Unix or Linux or if you are a developer even remotely interested in Linux/Unix printing, this book is for you.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.

Comments

lpd powerless?

[Merlin83]

After the story a few days ago about how it was so flexible and could be used for queueing up MP3s etc?

Re:lpd powerless?

[wiggys]

I guess the idea is to not use lpd for printing but instead use it for queueing up MP3 files.

So what should you use for printing? MPG123 of course!

Re:lpd powerless?

[TheRaven64]

I would be happy if i could use CUPS to print directly to PDFs instead of a printer.

Uh, you can. If your application produces postscript output, then just set up a 'printer' which filtes it through ghostscript with the -sDEVICE=pdfwrite switch and then outputs to a file instead of a printer port.

Re:lpd powerless?

[gurubert]

Or use cups-mailto to let CUPS mail the generated pdf file to the user.

Heh.

[American AC in Paris]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

...after all, you could just write "RTFM!" on a Post-It and stick it to your monitor.

Wah-Lah^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Walla^H^H^H^H^H Viola^H^H^H^H^H Voilà! Instant CUPS book!

Well ... let's see here ...

[SuperDuG]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

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".

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[mark_lybarger]

um, the poster was asking a question that was answered in their "review" via the who is this book good for section.

to comment on the review, i myself found the review quite lacking in substance, but the book might be the same. in my experience with CUPS (ok, i'm using a couple 'a lexmark printers, but they were fairly cheap), it's a major PITA to setup and work reliably.

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[L. VeGas]

Ha ha ha. My thoughts exactly.

No, no. Don't buy a book. Shoot, if you can't make sense of the man's, then why not just write your own Unix printing system? Come on, real men don't need books.

This makes about as much sense as asking if you should buy "Moby Dick" or a Bible since they're in public domain.

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[UnknowingFool]

Come on, real men don't need books.

And we don't need directions!

Incidently, I've noticed that maps sell faster in gas stations during summer vacation months. Coincidence?

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[TheRaven64]

This makes about as much sense as asking if you should buy "Moby Dick" or a Bible since they're in public domain.

Actually, there is no reasonable reason buying a Bible. If you don't have one, just let one of your local evengelical churches know, and they will give you at least one. My copy was kindly provided by the Gideons, and was a most entertaining read, with the exception of chronicals, which should have been cut, and included in the special features deleted scenes section (apocrypha) if required. My favourite part was Leviticus, which explains a load of things the christians aren't meant to do. Oh, and the Latin version is better.

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[carlos_benj]

Incidently, I've noticed that maps sell faster in gas stations during summer vacation months. Coincidence?

So, you just hang out near the map rack at gas stations all year making observations?

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[UnknowingFool]

it's called data mining.

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[TheRaven64]

1 and 2 Chronicles were accepted as holy scripture by the Jewish community relatively soon after their writing in the 5th century B.C. As such, it's part of the Old Testament of the "real Bible" that was subsequently accepted by Christianity.

I appreciate this, and it's importance from the point of view of prophesy (although one minor point - why does it cover the male line, when it is the female line that is important in Judaism?) it was a veiled reference to George Lucas' comment that the reason he removed all of the plot and character development in the final cut of Ep II was that it 'slowed down the action'.

Regarding the Apocrypha, that is a collection of writings that the Roman Catholic Church added to the "real Bible" in 1545 A.D. This was in direct retaliation to Martin Luther bringing the Vatican to task for its many abuses and doctrines that were directly contrary to the teachings of Christ and those who had apostolic authority (such as Paul). To counter this, the Vatican "blessed" additional predominantly secular writings that gave their practices an air of legitimacy.

Hey, that's some of the best bits! About the only references to Satan are there (I believe that the only one in the 'original' is part where Jesus is being tested in the desert).

In regards to Christianity, the vast majority of Leviticus has been superseded by the new priesthood of Christ. For example, instead of sacrificing livestock on a regular basis to atone for our sin, we are able to offer the divine "Lamb of God" on our behalf. Additionaly, access to God is granted directly to those who petition on behalf of Christ, as opposed to those who must use a human intermediary (i.e. the Jewish priest).

Jesus also repealed the bit about not eating shellfish, which is just below the part about not being gay and is a favourite passage of mine to quote at Christians who claim that any of my gay friends are 'an affront to God ' (because apparently Jesus didn't teach tolerance in their version of the bible).

In regards to the "Latin version," I do believe that it's important to use as early a translation as possible for serious study. However, most people (myself included) don't know Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, and as such use a recent English translation. Differences in versions (such as between the NIV and the KJV) usually come about due to whether the translators tried to convey a word-for-word translation or a thought-for-thought translation. That needs to be taken into account when trying to understand extremely difficult passages.

No, you miss my point. The Latin version just sounds so much better. Maleficos non patieris vivere rolls off the tongue so much better than any English equivalent (although the King James version tries harder than most modern translations).

This post is meant to be informative and hopefully a little interesting, as well as replying to a specific post.

In that canse, it'll probably be moderated as offtopic...

DISCLAIMER: I am neither a Christian nor a theologian of any kind.

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[Landaras]

Pre-emptive note to mods: Someone calmly and logically expressing their viewpoint in an on-topic way is NOT flamebait. Modding someone down solely because they are expressing an unpopular opinion / worldview is intolerant to the extreme.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Reality occasionally interferes with having the time to read Slashdot :).

Chronicles focuses on the male line because the geneaology traces from King David to Joseph, the legal father of Jesus. The Messiah was to be a descendant of King David, and since David was of the line of Judah, Jesus is often called "The Lion of Judah."

In regards to Jewish culture, little is more important in the religion of Judaism than the coming of the Messiah, hence Chronicles focusing on the male line. (Obviously Christianity and Judaism disagree on whether that Messiah has already arrived.)

Satan is referenced all over the place in the Bible. As far as being a character "on-stage," Satan figures prominently into early Genesis, Job, Matthew, Luke, and Revelation. I haven't read the Apocrypha, so I don't know how often he pops up there.

I must have missed the shellfish / homosexuality passage, or perhaps misread it. Give me the location and I'll study it ASAP. I believe homosexuality to be contrary to God's will, but to call people names, discriminate against them, etc. is counterproductive and quite frankly, sick. Although it's difficult, it is possible to sincerely love someone although you do not approve of their behavior. I would welcome evidence showing that homosexuality is not contrary to God's will.

In regards to tolerance, I agree that many Christians are hypocritcal in showing love. However, the world tends to have a different definition of "tolerance." The world seems to define tolerance as "being willing to accept something as true on the basis of someone else sincerely believing it." I define tolerance as "being willing to accept someone's right of free will to believe whatever they want, regardless of whether I believe them to be right."

As an example, I believe Hinduism espouses a worldview that is contrary to how reality exists, or "the way things are," for lack of a better phrase. I will defend to the literal death someone's right to freely believe whatever they want (as Christianity requires acceptance through free will). However, that doesn't mean that I have to believe that they are right.

I knew you were being facetious in your Latin version comment. I just wanted to throw out a tidbit that might be informative.

I'll post this without my karma bonus in an attempt to avoid the oft-abused "overrated" moderation :).

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[Landaras]

Oops, forgot to forgo my Karma on the above. *kicks self*

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Well ... let's see here ...

[TheRaven64]

Modding someone down solely because they are expressing an unpopular opinion / worldview is intolerant to the extreme.

Hehe. As if that would stop them :).

Reality occasionally interferes with having the time to read Slashdot :).

What is this 'Reality' of which you speak?

Satan is referenced all over the place in the Bible.

Sorry, my mistake. I meant to say New Testament. He seems to have fallen out of fashion by the time of christ. Actually, I seem to recall that the vatican anounced a while back that he was made up (sorry, allegorical) all along, and so was hell.

I haven't read the Apocrypha, so I don't know how often he pops up there.

All of the 'fallen angel' stuff that seems so popular with hollywood comes from there.

I would welcome evidence showing that homosexuality is not contrary to God's will.

I believe the exact quote is 'man shall not lie with a man as woman lies with a man'. I can't remember the exact chapter / verse, but I think it's about 1/4 of the way into leviticus.

The world seems to define tolerance as "being willing to accept something as true on the basis of someone else sincerely believing it." I define tolerance as "being willing to accept someone's right of free will to believe whatever they want, regardless of whether I believe them to be right."

I'm not sure that this is the case. I would define tolerance as accepting that everyone has the right to be wrong (I, of course, never exercise this right :). I don't think I've ever heard (outside a few theocracies) that you have to accept something as true just because someone else believes it.

Christianity requires acceptance through free will

So does Islam, according to their prophet. However, when he invaded Mecca (2 years into a 10 year peace treaty) I believe the choice was 'convert of your own free will or die'.

I'll post this without my karma bonus in an attempt to avoid the oft-abused "overrated" moderation :).

Don't worry, I doubt any moderators are reading this far down a thread.

You may be a CUPS user...

[Mononoke]

If you run any current Linux distro, the chances are that you already use CUPS for printing.

Even well-camouflaged Linux distros like Mac OS X.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

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.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[Shenkerian]

You don't seem the trolling type, so I'll assume you actually believe your statement.

Mac OS X is absolutely not a "well-camoflaged" Linux distribution. Mac OS X is Unix. It's essentially FreeBSD with a Mach microkernel.

But yes, being Unix, Mac OS X does use CUPS.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[Draoi]

Mod this retard down, OSX isn't linux.

True, nonetheless, CUPS is part of MacOS X and DarwinOS.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[Mononoke]

You don't seem the trolling type, so I'll assume you actually believe your statement.

Thanks, and No, I don't.

Maybe I could have done a better job of making my point.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[zephc]

Close, OS X uses the XNU kernel

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[Andrewkov]

So I should stop calling it GNU/OS X? ;-)

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[MrLint]

Well I dont know if its CUPS or MacOS X but i'll tell you taht im still not happy with printer sharing. Regardless of numerous attempts i was unable to get my windows box to printer to my HP all in one printer connected to my mac. Ideally these things should be as easy as 1) share printer with protocol 2) print.

Of course im willing to concede that perhaps printing to cups printer with win98 isnt likely to work well.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[skribble]

I think your problem is Windows 98, You should be able to set up your printer on Windows -> CUPS with:
ipp://server/printers/printer_name

I was never able to get this to work with Win98, It does work well with WinMe and WinXP

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[mufasio]

Mac OS X is Unix. It's essentially FreeBSD with a Mach microkernel.

I'm not trolling or anything, I just want to know because it's always confused me. I know FreeBSD is based on UNIX but I thought the purpose of it was to make a version of UNIX(or UNIX-like OS) that was free of any proprietary original AT&T UNIX code. And that they even had to remove a couple of files because of the suit brought against them by AT&T. Therefore wouldn't that just make *BSD a UNIX-clone or UNIX-like OS just like Linux or am I missing something. Everyone calls *BSD, UNIX, but it seems like it is just a UNIX clone to me.

I'm seriously not trolling, just want to know.

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[alangmead]

No, the original reason for BSD was for Universities to experiment in OS design. They took the original Unix, ported it to 32 bit hardware. They added virtual memory. They added job control. They added vfork (not all the experiments went well.) They added networking. (Ken Thompson took a sabatical from Bell Labs for at part of the development.) During that time, one first had to get a AT&T license for most of Unix, and then get BSD on top of that.

It wasn't until the early '90s (about 15 years later) that they realized that they had rewritten so much of it, very little of the AT&T code remained. Then they figured they could rewrite the remainder, and have a free OS to distribute. AT&T's case at the time said that replacing each component gave a system that was still mostly the same as the original. (Imagine taking a Mustang, and piece by piece replacing each component with an aftermarket one. When you are done, is it still a Mustang? or something else?)

Nowadays, the answer to "what is real Unix?" is "Whatever the Open Group says is Unix"

Re:You may be a CUPS user...

[mufasio]

OK I guess that makes since. It's always kinda stumped me b/c all histories of UNIX, etc. kinda leave out that detail and just say that BSD is based on UNIX. Thanks for clarifying.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[grub]

We don't need a stinking printing system, remember that all these nifty computers are going to bring us the "Paperless Office"! At least thats what we were told in the 80s.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[pivo]

What they meant was that, as a cost cutting measure, they weren't going to be stocking the employee washroom with toilet paper anymore.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Lord Ender]

My office is paperless. I work for the ISP part of a large university and we pass all our information around using a web-tool we wrote (and email, too). We have a printer, but most people dont have a use for it. I guess the 80s were telling the truth to my school.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[ahaning]

I guess we're lucky. Where I go to school and work, they give us what I like to call half-ply toilet paper.

You end up using a longer strip to make up for its lack of plys.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Paleomacus]

Where I work the toilet paper package is thicker than the actual tissue.

Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[ahaning]

Yeah. The paper towels that I use to dry my hands are thicker and softer than the toilet paper that I use to wipe my butt. Eh!?

BTW, nice UID.

Of course it makes sense to buy the book

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book

[Anonymous Coward]

Good documentation doesn't come after the fact!

Good documentation is part of the design process!

You "design" the software and out of that falls the code and the doc.

You won't be paying *good* money for doc that's done after the development has ended.

That's one of the major downsides of opensource/community software - every one wants to be Buck Rodgers and do the cool coding stuff rather than being grown-up and professional about it and assigning proper roles.

Too much software is "coded" and not "designed".

Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book

[mark_lybarger]

good documentation

there's a major difference that and just documentation. man pages are documentation. there's web sites with how-to guides for other documentation. and there's plenty of open source software based books that are just not worth the read. so the author was trying to let you know if this book is going to be worth the $$ you spend.

Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book

[haystor]

Oh please, name your proprietary well-documented projects. Oh, then name all the well-designed ones in the same problem space that failed because all that got done was design.

Everyone buys into this designing software theory, but unless you have the budget of NASA, the best results I've seen have been from hiring good people to write good code first. This results in a solid product that works well and is consequently easy to document.

Current software engineering seems to guard aganist coders being absolute morons. I prefer to hire quality and leave it to them to guard against not getting any real work done. All programmers know this is true, 10% get it and the rest don't. Its real easy to recognize the difference too.

Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book

[printman]

Actually, I've found that most development shifts from documentation to coding back to documentation on a regular basis, something like:

preliminary design -> prelim code -> detailed design + documentation -> final code -> final documentation

then starting all over again...

CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[Alkarismi]

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

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[Azghoul]

Now there's a book I'd buy. The problem I have is seeing all this great stuff from a bird's eye view: How would someone know how all this stuff connects and interoperates? Or even, how would one know that they DO interoperate?

Is there a book that talks about this kind of top-down view? How to Administer a Small Business Using Nothing But OSS and Your Brain.

Maybe even a "cookbook" series:
- Implementing CUPS for Sweet Printing Stuff.
- Using OpenLDAP: Why the hell you should.
etc...

Anyway, just a thought.

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[Alkarismi]

Oops, a bit premature with the 'submit' button there.
I meant to add that Samba + CUPS + OpenLDAP will do pretty much everything most businesses need for a back-end serving their MS desktops. It will also pave the way for bringing in new platforms (whether they be Open Source, MacOS X, whatever).
We've got a full case study illustrating this trilogy here:
http://www.siriusit.co.uk/support/casestudi es/k_g_ case.html
CUPS will give equal quality/ease of use/simple admin printing to your *NIX and MacOS users as your Windows users. Couple this with an OpenLDAP authentication backend and you're in a great position to diminish your companies reliance on MS software, or even eliminate it on the back-end entirely.
Don't want to go on too much more, but the features coming up in Samba 3.0 (due rsn), especially enhanced LDAP support and MS AS interoperability make this trilogy a no-brainer!

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[Alkarismi]

I agree, this would be a great book!
We've started an LDAP howto for some of it, but haven't worked in compatibility with CUPS, Sendmail, Cyrus, etc *yet*.
I should really mention Gerald Carter's LDAP book published by O'Reilly - this is for sure a part of the 'big picture'
Our howto is at http://www.siriusit.co.uk/documents/index_ldap.htm l
in case you're interested

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[DShard]

Maybe even a "cookbook" series:
- Implementing CUPS for Sweet Printing Stuff.
- Using OpenLDAP: Why the hell you should.
etc...

I would like a Why the hell you should book series. It would make for a get row on my bookshelf. We could do a series for MS products two... Maintaining Exchange: What the f*ck were you thinking?

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[Alkarismi]

er, boy am I retarded today, that link should be:

http://www.siriusit.co.uk/documents/index_ldap.h tm l

too much coffee, mumble...

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[sharkey]

Maintaining Exchange: What the f*ck were you thinking?

Almost as popular as its sequel: "Maintaining Exchange & Other Technical Impossibilities".

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[pantherace]

You might want to check out an admin script, which works and is used for doing all sorts of things (CUPS, ldap, samba, updating, and firewalls*) at sloppyadm.sourceforge.net or the project page I have written most of it, and would be happy to have contributions/bugreports/etc :)

The setup is being worked on as is a kommander based GUI (using ssh, so it can be run on a workstation)

Unfortunately, the machine I usually work on it on is out for the momement (Power supply died)

Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy

[ashitaka]

Great idea. Getting a clean duplication of Windows printing abilities is a pain as the docs out in the world are outdated, inaccurate and too Unix-side oriented to help an admin who's trying to support put a nice Linux back-end on a Windows front-end.
For example the following topics should be covered:

1) Native Windows Drivers vs Using a Generic Postscript driver and CUPS as the RIP.

2) Setting up Point-and-Print driver downloads properly with Samba and CUPS. (and why the drivers still may not work properly afterwards)

3) Job control security for Windows clients.

I still haven't found a good explanation of the interaction between Samba and the CUPS API.

Unix printing

[Arethan]

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.

Re:Unix printing

[SuperDuG]

This is bad considering that I'm a unix admin at heart.

If this post is true, lets hope that you're not a "unix admin at work".

Demistifying printing in Unix? Since when is RedHat Unix, are you working for SCO?!

Re:Unix printing

[DevNull Ogre]

LinuxPrinting.org rocks. Lots of good information with quality specifics for just about every printer that works with Linux. It has taken away much of the pain of printer configuration.

Re:Unix printing

[geders]

I've never used Redhat's GUI thingy, but KDE has a _great_ Printing Manager built in that has made all this configuration stuff easy as (gasp) Windows. Its available in K Control panel, under Peripherals->Printers (also in the KMenu by default too). Anyway, on my Gentoo box I have never had a second of problems printing with this handy utility...it will even scan a subnet to find all your network printers, so conveinent!

Re:Unix printing

[krray]

I beg to differ. I was sitting here thinking the EXACT SAME thing.

I can setup and use/maintain at work various Unix's. Linux, BSD, and OS X. At home I went to install my HP 1100 (connected to my Mac upstairs) on my RH box.

I downloaded drivers. Jiggled this. Played with that. Spent almost an hour on it before I gave up. Started playing with my RH test laptop which I typically only use for GUI stuff (while my main box is 99% command line use).

The printer was just there. I went back to my original box and put everything back and tried a "cat file | lpr" and it printed upstairs as expected. Wow.

Ask me to setup a network printer and the queue for any of the Netware's and I could do it in my sleep as well. Actually, Netware has ALWAYS run our queues at work.

I'm now at the same point and wondering how to setup a forwarding queue on Linux from the command line from scratch -- I'm 3,000 miles away perhaps.

Personally I print next to nothing -- my office only has paper in it people feel compelled to give me.

Re:Unix printing

[pmz]

I must admit, I've never been very good at setting up printers in Unix.

Don't feel bad. Almost no one is good at setting up printers in UNIX, unless they have PostScript-enabled printers on the network or those HP JetDirect things.

The UNIX printing facilities were really created for paid full-time printer administrators who need to feel their job is somehow justified.

There is also a lot of historical cruft that only complicates everything. In fact, UNIX printing documentation might just be a good primer on computing history.

BTW, this isn't a troll. I really enjoy working with Solaris, Linux, BSD, etc., but printing and terminal emulation are really a sore spot for me.

Re:Unix printing

[SuperDuG]

So you're an IT point and click guy. No shame in that, but if you aren't comfortable with command line or Kuduzu just "making it work" for ya, perhaps its time you hung up the "Unix Admin" hat and just start wearing the "Computer Guy" hat.

Unix admins know Unix, they don't sit around and watch redhat autoconf it for them, so like the parent I would classify you also as ... not a Unix Admin.

Re:Unix printing

[trynis]

Actually my experience is the opposite. I recently installed a NAT (I use my old PPro for this purpose) and connected a USB printer (HP Deskjet 930C) to it. I installed Mandrake 9.1, but didn't bother to configure the printer, since I've heard that it is supposed to be tricky. Then I installed Mdk9.1 on my other two boxes as well. Sometime later I accidentally tried to print from one of those, and to my surprise the printer connected to the NAT came alive and printed!

It just worked out of the box using CUPS.

Re:Unix printing

[joestar]

Remember: one of the CUPS main developpers is employed by MandrakeSoft and Mandrake Linux has been the first Linux distribution to provide CUPS by default. That could explain the good CUPS support in Mandrake 9.1.

Re:Unix printing

[printboy]

This is not a complete guide to UNIX printing but there are many interesting pages on howto setup many different versions of UNIX to print to network printers. The Solaris LPR/LPD page has has the most detail.

All the notes are based on Canon network printers as that is where I work.

http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/unix/index.html

I hope it can be of some use

Re:Unix printing

[jregel]

The ORA book on Network Printing is pretty good. I'll admit that I found (and probably still find) UNIX printing a pretty arcane setup, and the differences between SysV and BSD don't make life any easier.

It's interesting to note that Sun has dropped all the printing coverage from the Solaris 8 System Administrators course (it was in Solaris 7). Where I work, we do all our printing through JetDirect which takes a lot of the pain out of manually tweaking interface files.

Re:Unix printing

[printman]

Actually, this isn't the case; Till does Foomatic and is a main ESP Ghostscript developer, but he isn't directly involved in CUPS development (he does do lots of testing, packaging, and contributes patches regularly, tho...)

More than just a complete reference to CUPS

[Timesprout]

It has all the low down on saucers as well

Re:More than just a complete reference to CUPS

[A nonymous Coward]

Flying low down only, or does it inlcude the ones down low for repair?

Why not BSD lpd?

[WetCat]

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.

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[amorsen]

I have had no end of trouble getting non-postscript printers set up with plain lpd. Then you add the trouble that a whole lot of printers really do not like getting jobs from more than one host via the lpr protocol. For me, the IPP protocol and the www-based setup of CUPS has been a godsend. It gets better every day, as more and more printers get native IPP support. No more walking to the printer to try to interpret its display or blinkenlichts.

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[molarmass192]

Actually, I find CUPS is a terrible printing system compared to LPD. It tries to add a slew of additional features that mainly result in incompatibilities and inconsistent behavior. LDP might be old and simple but it works EVERY time. Not to slam the CUPS developers, I did try to like CUPS for about a 6 month run, but now you'll have to pry LPD from my cold dead hands.

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[WetCat]

Yes, if you have A LOT of printers.
I mean I got Mandrake, for example. Why not leave old plain lpd there by default? I have one or none printer there!

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[amorsen]

I only have one printer at home. Even for that one printer, I love CUPS. And I do add printers for places I go with my laptop. Very convenient. Windows can (somewhat) easily print to IPP too. Besides, lpr is a festering pile of old code. LPRNG was intended to replace it, but managed to only switch the security holes around a bit.

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[guacamole]

If you like BSD lpd, consider using LPRng from www.lprng.com

While keeping the simplicy and usability of BSD lpd, LPRng adds lots of nice features. It's ifhp print filter is excellent too and has support out of box for LOTS of printers.

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[WetCat]

Why do you think I have TCP/IP enabled in my computer AT ALL? For my good ol counting machine I have no TCP/IP in kernel at all...

Re:Why not BSD lpd?

[WetCat]

I tried.
I DO NOT WANT ANY STINKY "FEATURES"!
The best lpd is the lpd plug and play. NO features at all to think about. No queues!

Finally!

[inertia187]

Finally, a non-recursive UNIX acronym!

Re:Finally!

[Dawn Keyhotie]

Well, just change 'Common' to 'CUPS' and there you go! Feel free to recurse until your stack over floweth.

Yeah, the 'CUPS Unix Printing System' sounds more advanced than any old common printing system anyway.

Re:Finally!

[ihummel]

Obviously RMS has nothing to do with it, then.

Hahaha

[Plasmic]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

Ever heard of O'Reilly? They've got books about tons of open source software: sendmail, BIND, Samba, CVS, emacs, FreeBSD, bash, etc.

You don't need books about GPL software. Just read the source code. Riiight.

Re:LUNIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll bullshit. Under Red Hat, one fires up the printer control panel, gives the printer a name, selects where the printer is connected (locally, networked, etc.) and selects the printer's make/model if it isn't already autodetected. Hit the "apply" button, and that's it. It couldn't get any easier if the printer bit you on your troll ass.

I use CUPS

[HopeUnknown]

CUPS work well when printing from your PAN (personal area network.)

pratchett

[grantsellis]

Another thing - it is not as funny as Terry Pratchett. But I can live with that.

Dude, if you can be as funny as Pratchett while writing about configuring printers then you're definitely in the wrong field.

Re:pratchett

[m0nkyman]

Actually, if somebody can be as funny as Pratchett, while writing about configuring printers, I'd say he/she/it's in exactly the right field, and I'd gladly maim anyone who tried to convince said person otherwise*. The ability to make dry technical matter interesting is very rare.

*Yes, I'm kidding. I wouldn't condone or endorse maiming anyone (except maybe spammers who use my email address in the 'from' field).

I should know this?

[C Joe V]

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.

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

Web based configuration

[luugi]

I really like the fact that we could configure and see the status of the printer from a web browser.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[Zathrus]

It is more complicated than that, and you know it.

Even under Windows it's not that simple... ok, sure, for the dead simple cases it is, and it's not much harder under *nix with CUPS (AFAIK CUPS doesn't autodetect and autoconfigure, but I haven't hooked up a USB printer to my Linux box to check).

How do you setup a network printer under Windows? No, not a shared printer... one that sits on the network with maybe a little interface box and that's it. It sure as hell wasn't as easy as it should be, and even when you figure it out it doesn't always work. My HP Deskjet will use IPP just fine, from both Win98SE (which was an utter bitch to get working, since MS claims IPP support for Win98SE and then proceeds to avoid actually making it available) and XP (which was confusing to setup properly since the Add Port button is deeply obfusicated). My Canon photoprinter absolutely, positively refuses to play nice with IPP though. So even under Windows it is more complicated than that.

And adding print support in Windows isn't as simple as saying print(mystuff); -- proper printing support is quite a bit more complex. Dunno if CUPS is more or less complex than Win32 services, but I suspect it's a tie.

This isn't a book for average users, it's a book for admins. There are corallarys in every system, be it Windows, Mac (pre OS-X), *nix, mainframe, or whatever... the simple stuff should be simple. The complex stuff, sadly, remains overly complex.

somewhat off topic but...

[mrsbrisby]

mtas and print servers have a lot in common- so much so that with a simple "dequeing" program (that serializes message input) you can use your qmail [or other mta] as your printing system.

The obvious benefit is that you get to avoid weird printcaps, and all the different "stages" in which a program decides if it's postscript, native for the printer, resizing paper, etc.

Of course, using an MTA as your print server has other security issues to watch for- fortunately, these issues are for the MTA and mailboxes itself. So you don't have to learn the security details of two queue-action systems- only the one that you'd be using anyway :)

You won't have internet-printing-protocol, or an LPD server [although I suppose it wouldn't be that difficult to hook one into qmail-inject...], fortunately it seems that these things are less-important- at least on our network.

One of our clients uses those cheap print-server boxes, and has a Win2k box that can't seem to understand IPP. No matter, the box can send mail, so everyone's happy (infact- the program actually has a "print to email function" - so while it sounds weird to print to email to a printer, it's actually not that big of a workaround for them)

Anyway, back to CUPS... CUPS is a lot like sendmail. Yes, the configuration file looks slightly less like line noise, but it is complicated enough to warrent an entire [thick] book on the subject. I don't need IPP or foomatic or 10% of my programs to think my printer actually understands A4 paper, OR reading configuration files that make me think someone picked up the phone... I'll just stick to my qmail-printer.

cups is pretty cool.

[FroMan]

I used to use apsfilter w/ lpd for all my printing needs. Which worked, once it was setup. Though I never did get samba printing exactly correct. It was a bear. It was eaiser to setup sendmail than getting printing working in linux.

Well, a short while ago we picked up a new printer. I was dreading going into apsfilter setup again and wrestling with lpd and all that. I looked around cups' site looking for a decent howto. Nothing for a simple "just do it" documentation. I decided to try out gentoo's site for documentation, which is awsome. Here is an awesome howto for getting cups setup in gentoo. You could probably glean the information for doing it in other distributions also from this howto.

I know a lot of folks get sick of gentoo folks pushing it all the time. But documentation and howto's are one of gentoo's biggest strengths. I really reccomend folks look at the gentoo docs when they are trying to figure something out.

Nope, I don't have any affiliation with gentoo other than a user and the occasional bug reporter.

Re:cups is pretty cool.

[jedidiah]

Even manually editing printcap isn't as complex as dealing with even the the "simplified" version of sendmail configuration.

Who are you trying to kid?

Re:cups is pretty cool.

[FroMan]

Bah, sendmail isn't so hard. Once you have a basic set of address rewriting rules you can do some pretty powerful stuff. And if you are sticking with a simple configuration using m4, its even pretty easy.

Otherwise maybe its my choice of printers that made printing so unbearable.

Either way, it take me about 20 minutes or so to get sendmail setup on a new box versus hours and hours for printing.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[mystik]

Well, i'll just hit this print button, and *DOH* I forgot, printers not configured.

OR

Well, now that my printer's working, I don't need to print out this book again.

I suppose it'd make a good test print ;)

CUPS

[sulli]

If you run any current Linux distro, the chances are that you already use CUPS for printing.

But those of us who use OS X use CUPS for drinking. Large quantities of Mint Juleps, in particular, this past weekend.

Re:CUPS

[imadork]

But those of us who use OS X use CUPS for drinking. Large quantities of Mint Juleps, in particular, this past weekend.

And those of us out of High School who are ready for mature drinks use the Gnu/Linux Application System Software -- Enterprise Solution (GLASSES) to drink our Guinesses...

Re:CUPS

[Darby]

And those of us out of High School who are ready for mature drinks

Methinks you have no clue whatsoever what a mint julep is.

Re:CUPS

[imadork]

It's bourbon with mint sprigs and sugar, right? Why not just drink the bourbon straight, without the foliage? Can't say I ever had one, come to think of it.

I'll admit I was in a silly mood when I wrote that, though. I suppose anything you can drink at a racetrack can be mature, although not if they serve it with an umbrella....

Re:CUPS

[Darby]

Indeed it is.

I've never had one either but it sure sounds like a foofy drink by the name.
The only reason I even know what it is was that it was mentioned in Space Cadet by Heinlein. I was curious how someone could get trashed off a mint drink and looked it up ;-)

..although not if they serve it with an umbrella....

Too true.

Did you ever see that skit "Girl drink drunk" on Kids in the Hall?
Basically a guy had never had a drink before and a friend egged him into trying a 6 umbrella with 9 fruit hanging off 'em drink claiming, "it's just a girl drink". He ends up a gutter drunk in an alley drinking whatever kind of nasty stuff but panhandling for the little umbrellas and stuff.
Pretty funny.

Re:CUPS

[Matthew Weigel]

But those of us who use OS X use CUPS for drinking.

Yes. Just tonight, in fact, after spending all day doing CUPS programming on OS X, I drank heavily.

What's on the docket for tomorrow? Track down the latest bug, see if that's the only thing left, and then - you guessed it - drink heavily.

Hopefully I'll be done inside a week, and I can stop dealing with CUPS programming until Panther comes out.

Re:If anything requires voodoo

[jedidiah]

Printing on supported hardware has NEVER been "voodoo" in Linux. Nice menu driven interfaces have existed for setting up Linux printers since at least '95. Printing isn't horribly complex. You're simply throwing characters at the printer port.

Perhaps it might be useful to throw a filter on the front that's a shiny happy print options control. Stuff beyond that is overkill (like Berlin) that distracts from device support.

scoadmin is irrelvant as is CUPS.

Proper printer drivers are really what's useful.

In this respect, the freeware version of CUPS is far inferior to the Linux printer filters that were available 8 years ago.

There is no menu selection for my (brother) printer. This would confuse a novice not aware that it's LaserJet compatible.

Asking for pain...

[confused one]

Now if only someone would write a book telling me how to get my Lexmark winprinter to work under linux...

Re:Asking for pain...

[dodongo]

Throw it out and buy an HP, of course :)

CUPS color management?

[sakusha]

There is a lot more to printing than writing device drivers. I've been using CUPS on MacOS X for quite a while, since there are no other drivers for my old Epson 1520. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the color management abilities of CUPS. Sure it has custom color tables, but no real way to integrate with Colorsync or other color profiling systems. I can turn off all color management in CUPS, hoping it prints a relatively neutral profile, and then let Colorsync work it's profile to that, but you don't really get the full dynamic range compared to real official Epson drivers with real official Colorsync. So I'm not even getting as good quality color output and matching as with MacOS 9. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to get a new printer with proper drivers one of these days, but I like my old 4color printer for press proofing, I can't stand 6 or 7 color printer proofs when I'm targeting CMYK film output.

Re:CUPS color management?

[operagost]

I'd like a book on getting my ESC 1520 to print again. Cleaned that print head with professional cleaning solution and I still get nothing out of it. Bastard worked fine for about three years until I turned it off for three months.

Re:CUPS color management?

[ChuckleBug]

I don't understand what you mean by a "neutral profile" and then ColorSync working its profile to that. If it isn't color managing the data, it's just going from the document's color space to printer color space without transformation. What would be the "relatively neutral profile" and what would be ColorSync's profile?

I'm not nitpicking to be a dick. I'm interested in how to get color management working with CUPS, too, and I just want to be sure I understand what you're saying.

Re:CUPS color management?

[printman]

Actually, the current release *does* support basic color management and can generate CIE Lab or XYZ color data for printer drivers; however, none of the existing drivers use this (yet)...

Documentation Rocks

[redptam]

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.

Why use CUPS with OS X?

[chia_monkey]

A simple question. Why would an OS X user want to use CUPS? I know there's a good reason it is built in, I just haven't found the need to use it yet.

Maybe I'll use it, maybe I won't. I remember thinking "PDF workflow handling in OS X? Why bother?" but it turned out to be a great help when working on newsletters and such and mailing them out from Illustrator.

So if anyone could post a good "5 - Informative" reply to me, I'd love it.

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[HarveyBirdman]

Why would an OS X user want to use CUPS?

I believe it's handy for legacy printers that lack OSX drivers.

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[Buran]

Yup, I heard of someone who got a dot-matrix printer (!) to work with OS X via CUPS.

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[ferlatte]

If you ever print to an OS X network printer, you are using CUPS... you just didn't know you were using CUPS. :)

In fact, I believe that Apple uses uses CUPS for all printing as of 10.2... at least, my laptop appears to do so.

My buddy and I spent a long time trying to figure out how to "use" CUPS from a MacOS X client to a Linux server... until finally, we just tried to print something, and it Just Worked... the CUPS printer appeared in the MacOS X print selection drop down (due to IPP broadcasts, I suspect), and that's it. Worked great.

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[jamesbrown1000]

I was able to share my USB Brother laser printer with my Win2K box via CUPS.

Well?

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[kryptkpr]

To print to a windows-shared printer on the same network?

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[hypertex]

I was able to troubleshoot Rendevous printing because CUPS was available. That USB port on the Extreme base-station is sure sweet!

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[sketerpot]

Dot-matrix printers really aren't so bad anymore, and you don't get extorted for one of the nine billion different incompatible inkjet cartridges. Plus, they're fast and cheap, for people who don't print much.

Re:Why use CUPS with OS X?

[Buran]

Oh indeed. I didn't intend to imply that dot-matrix printers are bad. I think it's cool that they can be made to work with OS X.

I personally have an HP Laserjet 4MP that I've had for years. I don't print much, so I've replaced the toner cartridge one time, and I've never had any problems with it. It prints B&W at 600dpi which is more than enough for my home use, and if I need a color print I can get one on the HP Color Laserjet 4500 we've got here at work.

But I like having the option of using an older printer should I need/want to.

printing

[micromoog]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

Of course not, just download the man pages and print them ou-- oh, right.

Re:printing

[Paul Crowley]

OK, this made me laugh very hard for a long time...

(would have emailed, but no email in your profile)

The only CUPS...

[decepetion]

I am interested in, have to be at least C.

[OT, reply to journal: pc laptops suck]

[Ayanami Rei]

On the recent thinkpads, there's a BIOS option that says: "Boot default display: {CRT, LCD, both}".

It works like a charm. There's no reason to not select "both" unless you need an extra 10 min. on your battery.
And Fn-F7 toggles (wow, another one), if needed.

Works in Windows, Linux, et. al without fuss. You may have to add a monitor driver in Windows the first time it gets used (but I never saw that message... maybe it was autodetected during install as Generic XGA or some such)

Re:CUPS = SUCKS

[JCMay]

I think it was intentional and an example of something called "Satire."

Question for CUPS experts...

[pe1chl]

With Berkeley LPD you can do:

sap|write documents to sap-out:\ :sd=/var/spool/lpd/sap:\ :if=/usr/local/lib/print-sap-out:\ :af=/var/spool/lpd/sap/acct:\ :lp=/dev/null:\ :bk:sh:mx#0:

This sets an input filter on an otherwise dummy printer, which can be a shellscript or whatever executable. It will receive your request data on stdin, and gets args that specify the source host and loginname of the user submitting the request.
The above was in real-life use on a Linux system, the script took the input file and put it on an Intranet website directory as a PDF file. grouped by source system and user.

Now, update the Linux system and we got CUPS insted of lpd. But this simple way of input-filtering printers seems to be gone.... We can still write a backend, but it does not get the originating hostname as a parameter!

How is this solved or worked around?

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[gpinzone]

sap|write documents to sap-out:\ :sd=/var/spool/lpd/sap:\ :if=/usr/local/lib/print-sap-out:\ :af=/var/spool/lpd/sap/acct:\ :lp=/dev/null:\ :bk:sh:mx#0:

See, that's what I like about Linux. It's so simple to configure. Anyone can use it!

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[pe1chl]

This example (formatting was lost) is for the old system, with CUPS it is slightly better. But also seems less powerful. That is what you often see with userfriendly systems: they are newbyfriendly, but not very friendly to the user with some special requirement.

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[ashitaka]

It almost sounds like you missed the sarcasm. I had a similar thought when I first saw your command string, something only a Linux geek would be able to comprehend.

We actually have a similar requirement for our PDF printer. However, I would like to be able to capture the Word document filename that is being printed and email it back to the user in PDF format. Right now all I can do is give them machinename.PDF or username.PDF.

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[pe1chl]

> It almost sounds like you missed the sarcasm. I had a similar thought when I first saw your command string,

It is not a command string, it is a printcap entry.
And it is not for CUPS, it is for berkeley lpd. So it is for BSD geeks.

> It almost sounds like you missed the sarcasm. I had a similar thought when I first saw your command string,

I have not yet had it to work well enough on CUPS to know what happens there, but with berkeley lpd this may actually be possible!
Use a postscript printer on Windows, let it print to the lpd spooler on Linux, and examine the first few lines of the postscript output. The name may actually be there as part of a comment. Easy to extract using perl.

In the example I gave, the handler is actually a perl program that extracts information like that, for inclusion on the webpage.
(like "what program sent this output")

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[pe1chl]

Thanks, I will (have to) do further study and get it back into working order.

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[gurubert]

check out cups-mailto for that purpose. It's a backend that mails the printed output to the user requesting the job.

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[ashitaka]

Yes, it mails the job but the filename of the document that is being printed is lost. The Windows spooler generates a random spool file name and sends that to the Samba print share which then sends it to cups. The only things that are retained are the username who sent the job and the workstation from whence they sent it. There is no way to parse out the original filename.

Re:Question for CUPS experts...

[gurubert]

Yes, that happens when printing via samba share. But if you use IPP from Windows (printer network destination http://server:631/printers/printer ) then the document name will be the job's name.

I use redhat 7.2

[A55M0NKEY]

And I've upgraded KDE to 3.1.2, which means since I don't understand CUPS enough to upgrade it, I can't print. I'd get this book if I cared. The fact is, I don't know squat about Unix printing.

Re:I use redhat 7.2

[skribble]

There are perfectly fine CUPS rpms for RedHat 7.2 in fact they even have some printswitch or something utility to switch from lpd to CUPS

I installed RedHat 7.2 on an old laptop with CUPS and it's only real purpose is to act as a print server for my home. I can now print to my Brother HL-1240 from any printer in my home (from Windows XP/Mac OS X/ Linux...). Granted since there are no CUPS specific drivers for this printer and my Mac I emulate an Old HP LaserJet which means only 300x300 dpi, but without CUPS I wouldn't be able to print to it via network from my Mac at all. This replaces a HP JetDirect which never worked right.

Re:I use redhat 7.2

[operagost]

Complete How-To on JetDirect printing:

Using LPD:
Send print job to lpd port on host. Service name "text" for ASCII, "raw" for PCL.

Using telnet:
Send print job to port 9100.

Re:I use redhat 7.2

[skribble]

Yea, but that doesn't explain how to keep it (The JetDirect) from printing some strange extranous nonsense a couple times a day... seriously, every day it would print out 1-3 sheets of paper with like on line of random text. After a while that just got annoying. The CUPS solution is much nicer.

troll food: 12 step printer configuration

[FIRESTORM_v1]

Printing under linux SUCKS. Make it as easy as windows or setting up a jetdirect and we have something useful for small scall application.

Umm... under Redhat 7.3

As root:
1: run printtool
2: click 'New Printer'
3: click 'Next'
4: Name the Printer
5: click on 'HP JetDirect'
6: Enter IP address
7: Go find Printer driver in List (I use an HP LJ4) so I select HP->LaserJet4->ljet4
8: Click Next
9: Click Finish
10:click Apply,then OK to 'LPD restart' message
11:Select Printer from the list
12:Click on 'Test' then 'US LETTER Postscript Test'

Easy I'm a 12 stepper.. :P

Hell. In windows it is easy too, however you need to create a local TCP/IP port to print to and I don't have those instructions..

CUPS standard docs are poor

[Bopper]

I have to disagree that CUPS has good documentation.
The organization of it is confusing, some of it
is out of date, and many terms aren't defined.
It assumes you know what "foomatic" means
and what the gimp-print provides. It took me
three tries before I could install it successfully
from source code, and I still don't have it working
completely correctly (my printer configuration
disappears when I reboot my server?). Although its
great when it works, I think it could use a clear
and up-to-date HOWTO-CUPS.

print dialogs in applications

[ZorroXXX]

I really like CUPS and it is quite nice on the "system" side.

What is missing with regards to printing in unix is something better that the standard (unfortunately), ultra primitive printer options dialog box given to the user, i.e. a prompt asking for your favourite lpr command.

When I select File->Print in an application in X I should be presented with a dialog box with access to all the selected printer's specific options (for instance print on both sides, etc). As long as this is not the case printing in unix sucks, although with CUPS it sucks less :)

Re:print dialogs in applications

[Matthew Weigel]

I really like CUPS and it is quite nice on the "system" side.

Yes, it can do almost as much as lpr could do 20 years ago. For example, using the CUPS version of lpq, I can almost imagine what it would be like, being able to actually see what's in a remote queue.

I should be presented with a dialog box with access to all the selected printer's specific options (for instance print on both sides, etc).

Sounds to me like you're bitching about X, and the complete lack of any strong, standard API that might be able to provide standard print dialogs. Using OS X, I do get a dialog box with access to all the selected printer's specific options (as recorded in CUPS' PPD for that printer). I can also access those some printers, and all their options, using lp or lpr (the CUPS versions) from bash.

Re:print dialogs in applications

[ZorroXXX]

> Sounds to me like you're bitching about X, and the complete lack of any strong, standard API that might be able to provide standard print dialogs.

Yes. This is one thing Microsoft has done correctly from the start with their commdlg.dll/comdlg32.dll library.

Buy a book? Of course!

[Junks Jerzey]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

That is one very naive question, so let me be the first to welcome you to Slashdot.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[sheldon]

"No, not a shared printer... one that sits on the network with maybe a little interface box and that's it."

Well the Jetdirect card has an IP address you configure. This is detailed in the manual that comes with the card.

Then you go to your Win2k server and setup a new port... then assign drivers. This is also detailed in the manual that comes with the card.

"And adding print support in Windows isn't as simple as saying print(mystuff); -- proper printing support is quite a bit more complex."

How would you know? Your knowledge of Windows is still stuck in the Win98 era. THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[Zathrus]

Then you go to your Win2k server and setup a new port... then assign drivers. This is also detailed in the manual that comes with the card.

I have the Hawking PS12U - the HP JetDirect series was inadequate since it lacked USB ports and was about 3x more expensive for less functionality. The documentation details how to set things up, but it's rather deeply wrong on how to go about doing so. The Add Port functionality isn't discussed, and it's in different places in Win98, Win2k, and XP.

How would you know? Your knowledge of Windows is still stuck in the Win98 era. THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?

I'm so happy you don't work for my company. I pity whoever you do work for. We have a multitude of PCs at home... some run Win98SE, some run Win XP, some run Linux. The fact that I have boxes running 98 does not mean my "knowledge of Windows" is stuck in that era. I simply don't see the point in dropping a hundred bucks or so everytime MS puts out a new version of Windows. Win98SE is quite stable and fast if you know what you're doing, buy good hardware, and configure things right.

Not to mention I was talking about programming at that point. And the APIs involved haven't changed significantly between Win98 and XP.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[pe1chl]

Ok please answer this question about your favorite system:

All printers are setup defaulting to A4 paper. Users often complain that printout defaults to LETTER format. Nowhere in the system (except maybe in its American origins) it is indicated that LETTER should ever be the papersize. It can be fixed by setting a per-user preference of "fit the printing to A4" but where is the easy-to-set "we want to print on A4 DAMMIT!!"?

I think a book has to be read to find this out. It is at least not obvious from the dialogs in the printing system.

Bible's in the public domain?

[DrCode]

Are you sure? In the US, copyrights stay in force until something like 50 years after the death of the author. But religious people believe that god wrote the bible, and they certainly don't believe that god is dead.

There could be a BIG lawsuit coming out of this.

Re:Bible's in the public domain?

[tkg]

That's just the current law. In another few years that will be extended to '50 years after the death of the author's last known decendant'.

Re:Bible's in the public domain?

[Cruciform]

Yeah, but where's God going to find a dollar? As George Carlin points out, he's terrible with money.

Perhaps true, but....

[Kjella]

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.

...I imagine somewhere near all of those that buy a 650 page book about the printing system of their computer does...

Kjella

Someone likes an editor!!!

[jez9999]

Michael R. Sweet mannnnn, Michael R. Sweet!!!!

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[operagost]

It depends on your print driver, but usually there's a tab in the Print dialog that's called (you guessed it) Paper!

I'm SO Ashamed!

[Greyfox]

I had to get the Bat book back when I was still mucking around with Sendmail configuration. And I only ever used it once and then copied the same sendmail.cf file from installation to installation until I dropped the server for a more modern mail server...

Hmm "man mobydick"? Would that give you the full text of the book or just the cliff notes?

Re:I'm SO Ashamed!

[L. VeGas]

"man mobydick"

I think you just gave me my new pornstar name.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[pe1chl]

What I said: set to A4, user specifies nothing, still printer says "LOAD LETTER".
There seems to be a wired-in default of LETTER somewhere. This may be perfectly OK for the home market, but it upsets us Europeans.

Re:troll food: 12 step printer configuration

[ashitaka]

As root

Problem #1. I want my users to be able to add a printer. They should not need to be root.

For our 180 Windows users I have an "Add printer" icon that displays the shared printers on our Samba print server. They right-click and choose Connect. This installs and configures the printer on the workstation including downloading the applicable driver if required.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[Majix]

but where is the easy-to-set "we want to print on A4 DAMMIT!!"?

Interestingly, the really new HP LaserJet's have this feature, only slightly renamed ;)

From the printer panel you can configure it so that it'll always use A4 size even if the machine doing the printing explicitly requests letter. This makes a lot of sense, I've never seen anybody use letter size (in Europe) but all software will still be configured for it by default. It really shouldn't be the printer's job to force some specific size, but whatever it takes to get rid of "Load letter" is ok in my book.

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[pe1chl]

>Interestingly, the really new HP LaserJet's have this feature, only slightly renamed

Of course I know that. But it is not the solution, it is only a dirty workaround. It skips you past the prompt to load the letter-sized paper, but the page layout is still LETTER instead of A4, so your footers appear 2cm too high on the paper (and the bottom 2cm is always unused)

Re:How to print on a Linux box

[Goody]

This is /. Linux snobbery rearing its ugly head. After jumping through hoops to get a Linux box to print several years ago, I never had the inclination or time to set it up on subsequent boxes. I now use the method above...

A book

[NoCoward]

An entire book about a printing system? How complex is this solution anyway? I would think that if you need to write an entire book to discuss a software system that is providing the same services we have had for 30 years, then you may need to rethink the implementation.

Providing printing services to users should be plug and p(r)lay by now.

Foomatic

[FreeLinux]

You would think that the developers could have come up with a real name for Foomatic, before releasing it. I've always hated that name and it is even worse when trying to explain it to someone who is not familiar with CUPS.

GPLed Software...

[HaloZero]

And does it make sense to buy a book about a GPLed piece of software?

You mean, like, Perl?

My experience with CUPS/LPR...

[rinkjustice]

I recently installed the shiny new Redhat 9 on my system. It acknowledged my printer correctly and proceeded to configure it during boot-up. When I wanted to print out a document in KWord it gave me a robust selection of printer configuration options and print spooling/systems to choose from, then...

Nada. Zip. Not just CUPS but all of them printing systems or whatever you wanna call them.

No matter what application I use, it rudely farts out some obscure error I don't have the patience or time to investigate. Usually when I need a document printed out, it's not for a half hour from now or whenever I can find the time to get under the hood to fix it, I need it right there and then. So far, I've had to leave Windows with that grunt work.

Linux is still my favorite toy, but it still needs some fine-tuning for the novice and the lazy like me ;)

Re:My experience with CUPS/LPR...

[rinkjustice]

Why do you even read slashdot? So you can tell your friends you are a geek? You ain't.

Someone says I'm not a geek? I dont... think... I can go on living...

Re:How to print on a Linux box

[fanatic]

The parent, modded down as a troll, said:

cat filename.txt | mail -s "Print this" me@somewhere.com

and then print the email using Outlook Express on a Windoze box.

There, now you don't have to buy a book.

I have a Redhat 7.2 system at home. Printing is fucked to high-heaven. I love Linux, but printing under Linux is a goddamn nightmare. It's even worse than under Windows, which is no picnic, but usually works.

Re:How to print on a Linux box

[Trolling4Dollars]

Dude... it's your own damn fault if you're using RH 7.2. RH 8.0 has that all sewn up and RH9 has the extra fixes for the rest of the system. Setting up a printer from the GUI on my RH8 box took me all of one minute. This is for an Epson Stylus Color 600. In 7.2 it took me quite a while to get it going, but CUPS certainly fixes the matter VERY nicely. BTW... that one minute inluded setting it up as a shared printer as well.

cups vs NDPS/iPrint

[KKBaSS]

what is there that cups can do that ndps/iprint cant & vise versa?
NDPS
iPrint

Re:cups vs NDPS/iPrint

[KKBaSS]

(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)
hmmm, guess that actually means something eh?
NDPS NDPS
iPrint iPrint

Re:Need to read a book to print?

[Zathrus]

The idea behind a network printer is that you don't need an entire PC to feed the queue. I'd like to be able to turn my PC off and still have my wife print, thanks.

Re:Hawking PS12U

[Technician]

I love those little boxes. They even provide HP JetDirectand IPP. You can take your ancient Laserjet series II or III or even your inkjet and connect them to the parallel version and use them as JetDirect or IPP printers anywhere on the LAN. They also support IPP. They are also fully configurable with a web browser and the configuration is password protected. I have 3 on my home LAN. The parallel version eliminates a cable by attaching directly to the printer without a cable. It's as if the printer was manufactured as a LAN printer. Plug in a LAN cable and wall wart and the printer ready to configure and use on a LAN. Win and Linux boxes connect to them with no problems. IF I remember properly, they could also be a DHCP server. They can configure as a Novell Network Printer. That little box does a lot.

Re:nice UID

[Paleomacus]

Yeah I've been reading slashdot for years and only very occasionally posting AC. One day I decided I wanted to post more regularly so I registered.

-- I was rewarded greatly.

Re:History of BSD Unix

[alangmead]

I just found a much better description in a paper named Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix

Re:How to print on a Linux box

[po_boy]

Here's your UUoC award.