19 Facts About CUPS

CUPS is a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows a computer to act as a print server.

CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol as the basis for managing print jobs and queues.

The original design of CUPS used the Line Printer Daemon protocol, but due to limitations in LPD and vendor incompatibilities, the Internet Printing Protocol was chosen instead.

CUPS was quickly adopted as the default printing system for most Linux distributions.

CUPS provides a mechanism that allows print jobs to be sent to printers in a standard fashion.

Related searches

CUPS offers a standard and modularised printing system that can process numerous data formats on the print server.

CUPS allows printer manufacturers and printer-driver developers to more easily create drivers that work natively on the print server.

CUPS can convert supplied data either into PostScript data or directly into raster data.

HPLIP provides Linux+CUPS drivers for HP printers, Gutenprint is a range of high-quality printer drivers for inkjet printers, and TurboPrint for Linux has another range of quality printer drivers for a wide range of printers.

CUPS provides both the System V and Berkeley printing commands, so users can continue with traditional commands for printing via CUPS.

CUPS uses port 631, which is the standard IPP port, and optionally on port 515 by inetd, launchd, the Solaris Service Management Facility, or xinetd which use the cups-lpd helper program to support LPD printing.

When CUPS is installed the lp System V printing system command and the lpr Berkeley printing system commands are installed as compatible programs.

In GNOME starting from GNOME 3, CUPS printing has been handled in the Settings application, which is part of the GNOME Core Applications.

KDEPrint framework for KDE contains various GUI tools that act as CUPS front ends and allows the administration of classes, print queues and print jobs; it includes a printer wizard to assist with adding new printers amongst other features.

Raymond had attempted to install CUPS using the Fedora Core 1 print manager but found it non-intuitive; he criticised the interface designers for not designing with the user's point of view in mind.

CUPS found the idea of printer queues not obvious because users create queues on their local computer but these queues are actually created on the CUPS server.

CUPS found the plethora of queue-type options confusing as he could choose from between networked CUPS, networked Unix, networked Windows, networked Novell or networked JetDirect.

CUPS found the help file singularly unhelpful and largely irrelevant to a user's needs.

Easy Software Products, the original creators of CUPS, created a GUI, provided support for many printers and implemented a PostScript RIP.