Ubuntu 11.10 & 11.04 To Support Apple AirPrint

kai_hiwatari writes "According to an email in the Ubuntu-Devel mailing list, AirPrint support is now available for Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' and Ubutnu 11.04 'Natty Narwhal' as well — although it is in the testing phase for now. Developer Till Kamppeter sent an email to the mailing list inviting testers to test out his patch that enables AirPrint in Ubuntu."

Comments

Nothing much new here.

[domatic]

I've been doing this for months. Avahi can share any cups queue as an Airprint queue. I used this howto:

http://www.finnie.org/2010/11/13/airprint-and-linux/

There are also scripts that will autogenerate the Avahi service files for you. The only real new thing here might possibly be a better UI for doing this.

AirPrint = IPP + Zeroconf/DNS-SD

[DrYak]

"AirPrint" is just a fancy name for what is basically networked printing using the IPP protocol, with automatic discovery of available printers with zeroconf (using DNS-DS).

The linux solution uses Avahi for the zeroconf discovery part, and CUPS for the IPP printing service.
- CUPS can be a vanilla version, as long as the printer is supported.
- Avahi needs to be manually configured, in order to output the few extra data which is required for an iDevice to recognise it as a AirPrint and list it as a possible printing target.

Upstream merging shouldn't be too troublesome. Expect AirPort appearing in the next iteration of distros.
As mentionned elsewhere among the discussion, what would really be needed is a nice interface to help do this configuration. I suspect that openSUSE's YaST will do a nice job here, as usual.