7.1. CUPS

To print a job with CUPS, you can use both the BSD (see Section 5.3.1) and System V commands making it really easy for people with prior experience with either system.

Initially CUPS lacked an LPD backend. This was of course quickly added. Currently there are backends available for at least IPP, LPD, SMB, JetDirect, USB, Netatalk, parallel and serial printers. You may find others on the net or write your own.

There are only a handfull of built-in drivers, allowing you to print with most printers but probably not at the maximum resolution. A PPD file for a Postscript driver can be added to CUPS but if you want to print at best quality with your fancy new HP Deskjet you are out of luck. It is here that Foomatic comes to the rescue. You can use Foomatic in combination with CUPS. Foomatic uses a CUPS filter called foomatic-rip to do its magic. foomatic-rip uses PPD files to describe printer capabilities, even for non-Postscript printers. CUPS + Foomatic is currently the recommended printing system. Some Linux distributions already use it and the number that do will only grow.

The CUPS scheduler does not only accept jobs, it is also a administrative webinterface. Currently you can add/delete printers, cancel jobs, start/stop printers. Moving jobs will be available in a later release.