Cups Install

OK, this is very much a work in progress, but since it has come up on the list recently I thought I would add my install notes to the wiki:

• OK, a dummy install to see what extra packages may be needed – this isn’t necessarily everything as packages may already be installed

orca:~# aptitude -s install cupsys Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done The following NEW packages will be automatically installed: {{{   cupsys-bsd cupsys-client gs-esp libcupsimage2 libslp1 smbclient   xpdf-common The following NEW packages will be installed:   cupsys cupsys-bsd cupsys-client gs-esp libcupsimage2 libslp1 smbclient   xpdf-common 0 packages upgraded, 8 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 9078kB of archives. After unpacking 30.0MB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]

• Installed the above packages. configuration then available through

http://localhost:631/. You still need to sort out the driver side of things though!!! }}}

• OK, installed new printer following the web interface:

for the C710 (which in my case is a network printer with an ethernet card built in, so this bit will cover a network printer)

Printers -> add printer

Name: C710 (just a printer name for reference, but there are restrictions; it defines the name used for the .ppd file in /etc/cups/ppd) Location: Study (just for reference) Description: Colour Laser (again for reference) -> continue

Device – LPD/LPR host or printer (in this case the printer has a network LPD server built in) -> continue

Device URI – lpd://192.168.39.101/c710 (lpd is for the daemon and pre-input for you; ip address of the printer on the network; these are clear enough; what the queue references I have not fully determined, but c710 worked, so it is an arbitrary value that you assign) -> continue

• If it is a *real* HP network printer then the socket printing method is the one for you. socket://ipaddress:9100 (or 9101.9102 for the 2nd/3rd printer on that IP). ChrisAitken

Make – HP (arbitrary choice and the list is totally lacking; this appears to be related to creating a .ppd file to drive the printer, so in practice I don’t think I would worry what I chose here; I suspect that with some extra packags installed this may be a longer list, perhaps some of the Gimp print stuff?) -> continue

• Yup – If you install cupsys-driver-gimpprint, then you get a lot more drivers. ChrisAitken

Model – HP Colour Laserjet Series PCL 6 CUPS v1.1 (en) (again this list is seriously lacking, but again the choice is largely irrelevant since we are going to overwrite the file it creates!) -> continue

• A test print at this stage talks to the printer, but although the data gets to the printer in tact, the page layout is all over the place, so:

Trundle off to http://www.linuxprinting.org/ and go to the Printer Listings section; then select the printer (Lexmark, Optra C710) and ‘Show’ the information. This tells ou that it works quite happily with the Postscript driver; so download the PPD and copy it into the /etc/cups/ppd directory. This can then be used to overwrite the c710.ppd that has just been created and this prints fine (although the test page is in b/w)

linuxprinting.org will also show you the best driver to use for your printer, so it maybe that (by example) an HP deksjet requires the hpijs package – just apt-get it. I tend to put the ppds I download from linuxprinting into /usr/share/cups/model – then they appear in the relevant manufacturers list in the cups webinterface. ChrisAitken

• notes to self – there has to be a better way to install the driver; need to

check up on colour printing; how is this going to work from applications?

• if you apt-get install foomatic-filters-ppds (talking Debian speak here) you’ll get a much bigger range of printers to choose from when you install. This should eliminate the need to manually download the driver from linuxprinting.org. (I did look at foomatic when I did the first draft of this, and I’m not sure why id didn’t give me the range of printers it did this time around – only a very small number to choose from, and they were available with the default CUPS install).

OK, OOo printing:

Run the Printer Admin tool (oopadmin) and you get the option to add a New Printer, from here:

Add a printer ->next Import (necessary if it is not listed) ->popup window – in here you can import a .ppd description for a postscript printer (which we have already obtained above for cups, so browse to where you downloaded (directory wise) and Select; a list of printers from any available .ppd files in that directory will be listed; choose and ->OK You can now choose the printer from the list ->next Your queue as created for CUPS should be listed so select: lpr -P “C710” and ->next type or accept the default name ->finish

You may like to go into the properties and take a look around the tabs to make sure you are set to A4 paper size, etc. as necessary

• notes to self – futz, still b/w printing

aptitude install foomatic-db installed foomatic-db,foomatic-db-engine,foomatic-filters,netcat

• OK, an update:

to enable remote access to the web interface check the <Location> sections for / and /admin and make sure that there is a line equivalent to:

Allow From 192.168.39.*

in cupsd.conf, then restart cups

Now looking for USB stuff!!

Well that was easy – just chose USB Printer #1 as the device option, and off it went!

• This last bit is not too helpful wiki wise! There are some USB bits that need to be installed, but since I had Debian unstable they already were!

OK, this needs some better laying out and clearer explanation of what’s going on – that’s on my todo list

I’ll see if I can improve things for this Wiki page a bit later. – PaulTansom