Linux Server Hacks, Volume Two

Hack #24. Create a CUPS Print Server

Let printers announce themselves and create a flexible, modern printing environment by setting up CUPS.

Today's printers are typically high-quality laser or inkjet printers, often capable of color printing and near-photographic quality. The original Unix printing system, known as lpd (Line Printer Daemon) was designed to queue and print jobs that were intended for huge, text-only line printers. As more sophisticated printers were developed that were capable of higher-quality printouts (such as the original x9700, Canon-CX, and Imagen-300 laser printers), the original lpd print system continued to be used, but it required that the jobs you were printing be preprocessed so that they contained the special commands the printer used internally to produce higher-quality printouts. This quickly became tedious, because it meant that users had to know which printers they wanted to print to and required use of the appropriate preformatting commands. Eventually, the lpd system was updated and a similar printing system known as lp was developed. lp encapsulated the knowledge about the formats required by specific printers, implementing the necessary preformatting commands into filters (also known as print drivers) that automatically formatted files as required by the target printers.

The evolution of multiple printing systems for Unix systems was not without pitfalls: it led to incompatibilities between the different print systems, required recompilation ...