The Common Unix Printing System can be installed to provide better printer support than the usual BSD printer support, if it is not already a part of your Linux distribution.
Download the latest version of CUPS from Easy Software (now Apple) at http://www.cups.org/software.php. Once you have downloaded the tar ball, change to the directory where it was downloaded and unpack it:
tar -xvzf cups-1.2.12-source.tar.gz
Change to the source directory, and configure and build the source (it is best to leave out SSL, unless you really need it):
cd cups-1.2.12
./configure --disable-ssl
make
As super user, install CUPS:
su
make install
The install should put a copy of the CUPS start script in your system's startup directory (typically /etc/rc.d/init.d) but it may not enable it. To do so, try the following:
/sbin/chkconfig --add cups
/sbin/chkconfig cups on
/sbin/chkconfig --list cups
The result should show CUPS turned on at runlevels 2, 3, 4 and 5.
If you want to use CUPS right away, start it as follows:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/cups start
Launch the CUPS UI via your Web browser. The first time around, you may need to do this from localhost (it depends on whether you are running a version of CUPS that supports the "WebInterface" setting in cupsd.conf and whether this setting is set to "Yes").
http://localhost:631
Once you have the UI up and running, you can allow local machines to remotely administer CUPS by clicking the Administration tab and checking the "Allow remote administration" check box. Otherwise, you will always have to administer CUPS from localhost.
Pick the Administration tab.
Click "Add Printer"
Printer Name: Laser
Location: Office
Description: NEC Silentwriter 95 LASER printer
Click "Continue" and then pick the device type as described below.
If you wish to set up a line printer server that uses the LPD protocol to print Postscript text, proceed as follows:
Device: LPD/LPR server (from dropdown list)
URI: lpd://kinkos/Laser (this example is for a Lantronix EPS-2 which has a
queue called "Laser" on Port_2)
Note that you get the IP number and queue name from the server's setup but
you should always use "lpd://".
Make: Postscript
Model: Generic postscript printer
If you wish to set up a line printer that uses the Raw protocol to print ASCII text, without modification (e.g. Genicom, DataProducts), proceed as follows:
Device: AppSocet/JetDirect (from dropdown list)
URI: socket://10.100.0.20:10001/PORT1 (this example is for a NetPrint 500/100
which uses port 10001 [by default] and
has a queue name of PORT1 [by
default])
Note that you get the IP number, port number and queue name from the server's
setup but you should always use "socket://".
Make: Raw
Model: Raw queue
For each printer, you may want to test its printing capabilities after it is set up by clicking the Printers tab and then clicking its "Print Test Page" button.
Once you have set up all your printers, you should select one as the default by clicking the Printers tab and then clicking the "Set As Default" button for the printer that you wish to be the default. You can test the default print setting by doing an lpr command from the command prompt:
lpr conf/cupsd.conf