GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
Desktop Survival Project Home Preface Advocacy History Distributions Installing GNU/Linux Basic Survival Wajig Applications AI, Machine Learning, Data Science Android - GNU/Linux Devices Audio Backup Booting CD Chinese ChRoot Clock Command Line Databases DIA Directories Disks EcoSysL Emacs Email Evolution Files File Systems Firewalls Floppy Disks FreedomBox Glade GNOME Graphics, Images, Photos Hardware Initialisations on Booting Installation Examples Internet IOT Java KDE Kernels Keyboard Konqueror KVM Switch LATEX Log System Login Magellan MATE Mathematics Memory Modems Mounting Devices MS/Windows Music MySQL Nautilus Networks Nextcloud Network File System NFS NT File System Oracle Packages Partitions Passwords PDF Power Management PPP Presentations Printing Python R Remote Desktops Rsync Samba Scanning Science Screens Security Spreadsheet SSH Swap Teradata Data Warehouse Themes TV Unity USB Version Control Video Virtualization Voice over IP WebCam WordPress Web Sites Word Processing and Printing X XML Troubleshooting Index

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.