CUPS The Common UNIX Printing System

Updated Oct 22 2002

CUPS
Common UNIX Printing System
www.cups.org

From their FAQ

What Is CUPS?

CUPS provides a portable printing layer for UNIX®-based operating systems. It has been developed by Easy Software Products to promote a standard printing solution for all UNIX vendors and users. CUPS provides the System V and Berkeley command-line interfaces.

CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol ("IPP") as the basis for managing print jobs and queues. The Line Printer Daemon ("LPD") Server Message Block ("SMB"), and AppSocket (a.k.a. JetDirect) protocols are also supported with reduced functionality. CUPS adds network printer browsing and PostScript Printer Description ("PPD") based printing options to support real-world printing under UNIX.

Hi all. Rick here,
I have tried this in our lab. It seemed to work very well and you can use it with many different UNIX flavors. Also when you use the PPD for our printers you get full functionality. Very cool.
This could be an excellent solution in many environments. Send me you experience with CUPS and I'll post them at the bottom of this page for other to see.
Keep having way too much fun.

Here is a email from Justin Hickey of the National Research Council of Canada. Thanks Jazzman, great to hear and love the sig. I have the same problem ;-)

Subject: Printing with Linux
From: "Justin Hickey"
To: "Rick Preston"
Date: 12 Oct 2001 17:10:20 -0300

Hello Rick

I'm not sure if you remember me, but back in July, I was in touch with you concerning printing from Linux to a Canon iR400 printer using CUPS. You had advised that we upgrade the printer software in order for CUPS to communicate with the printer through port 9100.

Well, we finally got the upgrade and I was able to configure the printer quite easily. And so far, I have had no problems. I have included below a brief list of what I did to configure the printer in case you were interested.

- Install CUPS 1.1.10 (I used a Linux rpm)
- Copy the Canon ppd file from Windows installation (winnt/system32/spool/drivers/w32x86/2/efmc7a10.ppd) to /usr/share/cups/model/
- Restart CUPS daemon or reboot (I rebooted)
- Use CUPS web interface URL => http://localhost:631/admin (may need to log in as root)
- Click "Add Printer"
- Fill in Name, Location, and Description (these can be anything but Name may be limited to alphanumeric - no spaces) and click "Continue"
- Select "Internet Printing Protocol" for a device (This might be able to have other values) and click "Continue"
- Enter in "socket://hostname:9100" for URI and click "Continue" (substitute proper value for hostname of course)
- Select "Canon" as driver and click "Continue"
- Select "Canon iR330-400 PS Print Server Ver 1.0 (en)" (the only option) and click "Continue"

And that's it, the driver was installed. Note that this was for a printer connected directly to the internet without a print server.

Once again I would like to thank you for your help and let me know if you need more information about the installation.

Talk to you later.

--
Sincerely,

Jazzman (a.k.a. Justin Hickey) e-mail: Justin.Hickey@nrc.ca
National Research Council of Canada
Institute of Information Technology (IIT) -- e-Business
Fredericton, NB, Canada Phone: (506) 452-3721
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