CUPS - Common Unix Printing System 248
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this book is not for you.However, if you are serious about printing, if you are considering replacing the outdated legacy printing system that came with your Unix or Linux or if you are a developer even remotely interested in Linux/Unix printing, this book is for you.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.
lpd powerless? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:lpd powerless? (Score:5, Funny)
So what should you use for printing? MPG123 of course!
Re:lpd powerless? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
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 ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ... (Score:2, Insightful)
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 ... (Score:4, Funny)
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 ... (Score:2)
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 remov
Bible's in the public domain? (Score:5, Funny)
There could be a BIG lawsuit coming out of this.
Re:Bible's in the public domain? (Score:2)
I'm SO Ashamed! (Score:2)
Hmm "man mobydick"? Would that give you the full text of the book or just the cliff notes?
Re:I'm SO Ashamed! (Score:2)
I think you just gave me my new pornstar name.
You may be a CUPS user... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You may be a CUPS user... (Score:5, Informative)
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... (Score:2)
Re:You may be a CUPS user... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You may be a CUPS user... (Score:2)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:2)
True, nonetheless, CUPS is part of MacOS X and DarwinOS [apple.com].
Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
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. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Score:2)
Of course it makes sense to buy the book (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book (Score:2, Insightful)
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 "design
Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book (Score:2, Interesting)
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 absol
Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book (Score:2)
preliminary design -> prelim code -> detailed design + documentation -> final code -> final documentation
then starting all over again...
Re:Of course it makes sense to buy the book (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.ht
in case you're interested
Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy (Score:5, Funny)
- 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 (Score:2)
Almost as popular as its sequel: "Maintaining Exchange & Other Technical Impossibilities".
Re:CUPS is part of the 'killer app' trilogy (Score:4, Interesting)
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/casestud
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 (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
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
Unix printing (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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 p
Re:Unix printing (Score:2)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unix printing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unix printing (Score:2, Informative)
It just worked out of the box using CUP
Re:Unix printing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Unix printing (Score:2)
Re:Unix printing (Score:2)
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.
More than just a complete reference to CUPS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More than just a complete reference to CUPS (Score:2)
Why not BSD lpd? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have a network of users usually, for occasional printing it's an awfully complex system.
Re:Why not BSD lpd? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why not BSD lpd? (Score:2)
Re:Why not BSD lpd? (Score:2)
Re:Why not BSD lpd? (Score:2)
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.
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Hahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need books about GPL software. Just read the source code. Riiight.
pratchett (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, if you can be as funny as Pratchett while writing about configuring printers then you're definitely in the wrong field.
Re:pratchett (Score:3, Funny)
*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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Perhaps true, but.... (Score:2)
Kjella
Web based configuration (Score:3, Interesting)
cups is pretty cool. (Score:5, Informative)
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 [gentoo.org] 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. (Score:2)
Who are you trying to kid?
CUPS (Score:4, Funny)
But those of us who use OS X use CUPS for drinking. Large quantities of Mint Juleps, in particular, this past weekend.
Re:CUPS (Score:2)
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:CUPS (Score:2)
Methinks you have no clue whatsoever what a mint julep is.
Re:CUPS (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
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
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 of
Asking for pain... (Score:3, Funny)
CUPS color management? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:CUPS color management? (Score:2)
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? (Score:2)
Documentation Rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Why use CUPS with OS X? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Informative)
I believe it's handy for legacy printers that lack OSX drivers.
Re:Why use CUPS with OS X? (Score:2)
Re:Why use CUPS with OS X? (Score:2, Interesting)
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 suspec
Re:Why use CUPS with OS X? (Score:2, Informative)
Well?
printing (Score:5, Funny)
Of course not, just download the man pages and print them ou-- oh, right.
The only CUPS... (Score:3, Funny)
Question for CUPS experts... (Score:2, Interesting)
sap|write documents to sap-out:\
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
Re:Question for CUPS experts... (Score:4, Funny)
See, that's what I like about Linux. It's so simple to configure. Anyone can use it!
Re:Question for CUPS experts... (Score:2)
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... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 Wind
Re:Question for CUPS experts... (Score:2)
Foomatic (Score:2)
print dialogs in applications (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
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.
Sounds to me like you're bitching about X, and the complete lack of any strong, standard API that mig
Buy a book? Of course! (Score:2)
That is one very naive question, so let me be the first to welcome you to Slashdot.
GPLed Software... (Score:2)
You mean, like, Perl [oreilly.com]?
Re:LUNIX (Score:2, Informative)
troll food: 12 step printer configuration (Score:5, Informative)
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..
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..
Re:troll food: 12 step printer configuration (Score:2)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Need to read a book to print? (Score:2)
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
Re:Need to read a book to print? (Score:2)
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
Re:Need to read a book to print? (Score:2)
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 wh
Re:If anything requires voodoo (Score:2)
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
Re:How to print on a Linux box (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
Re:How to print on a Linux box (Score:2)