Go to TogaWare.com Home Page. GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams
Duck Duck Go



CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE UPDATED SURVIVAL GUIDE

Printing

20200323 CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System, is a printing system for Unix and GNU/Linux, implementing various protocols including the LPD (Line Printer Daemon) protocol, the IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) and others. It uses PPD (PostScript Printer Description) files to identify the features of a printer, maintains printer configurations, and provides access to the printer options through the command line or a browser. It also has client side filters to convert, for example, pdf to PostScript to avoid pages of raw output of pdf (for Postscript printers).

The cups-pdf package provides a virtual pdf printer to print to pdf files.

After installing cups visit https://localhost:631/in a browser to manage printers.

A command line interface is also available and below are some common tasks.

Identify printers broadcasting their device URI:

$ lpinfo -v

List locally installed printers and their device URI:

$ lpstat -v

Add a printer queue named F108 with specified device URI and enable the queue:

$ lpadmin -p F108 -v https://vitellius.dcs.ktu.edu:631/printers/F108 -E

Submit a test page to the printer:

$ lpr -P F108 /usr/share/cups/data/testprint

Check the print queue:

$ lpq -P F108

Remove the printer:

$ lpadmin -x F108

The printer information is collected into /etc/cups/printers.conf.


Subsections
Support further development by purchasing the PDF version of the book.
Other online resources include the Data Science Desktop Survival Guide.
Books available on Amazon include Data Mining with Rattle and Essentials of Data Science.
Popular open source software includes rattle and wajig.
Hosted by Togaware, a pioneer of free and open source software since 1984.
Copyright © 1995-2020 Togaware Pty Ltd. Creative Commons ShareAlike V4.