Cups

CUPS

CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) can be used instead of the default LPR printing system. And there is a good chance if your printer does not work with LPR it will with CUPS.

In a post from Striker we found a good way to set it up:

QUOTE (Striker @ Forum 2004)

If you use CUPS,you must make sure the lpd service is stopped and the cups service is started:
If I remember well, I had to be root for this :

/sbin/service lpd stop
/sbin/service cups start

Also if there's a services configuration tool in Slack, use it to configure your system to start the cups service automatically (and disable the lpd service if it is running).

After the cups daemon is started, open a web browser and connect to the cups server:
http://localhost:631

Then you have to add the printer in the Cups Configuration Interface.
When you did get that far, it's probably working, so we go on: to add a printer, click Manage Printers and then the Add Printer button.
It'll ask for username and a password. I did have to use root as the username and my rootpassword .

NOTE: If you see your printer in the cups drivers list, but not the exact version number of the printer, you could try a few other versions at random, and most of the time you will be able to find a version number that will use the same drivers. This is not ideal and the quality may not be 100% but at least you will be able to print.

Now, once you have set up CUPS you will notice it will print in KDE programs, but not in OpenOffice . . . Here is a trick you can try, type in a console:

CODE

/usr/lib/openoffice/program/spadmin

( Check the path because this is the one for Mandrake 9.2 . . . . "/openoffice/program/spadmin" is the fixed part you can "locate" )

You will get a dialog where the generic printer is preselected . . . . click on properties . . . you will see that the command is "lpr" . . . . . replace that with "kprinter -stdin" . . . . and save.

Why ? Koffice and KDE are just configured to use CUPS and not "lpr" . .

NOTE: You might have to clear the printer lpr queue first, delete the old jobs that are not finished and still blocking the process ( even after a reboot ):

CODE

$ lprm -

( "lprm" will remove the active job, "lprm -" will remove all jobs )

All info on CUPS and printing: CUPS Quick Start at Linuxprinting.org

Bruno

-- Feb 4 2004 ( Revised Dec 12 2005 ) --