Customer Reviews

CUPS: Common UNIX Printing System

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent book on what seems to be the most advanced printing system for UNIX these days. It covers a vast number of topics including building and installation, printer setups, server and client configurations, and several chapters on programming CUPS with an API. The best part that I got out of the book was the numerous examples, including code examples.

This book is targeted for writers of printer configurations files, and not for System Administrators.

As a UNIX and Linux system administrator of 5 years I find that setting up network printing was and is one of the most surprising challenges. And perhaps one the most challenging issues to explain to my users and management. After all Windows printing is virtually plug and play. Whereas configuring printing on UNIX and Linux is virtually without standards and is unique to each printer. Thus I am very excited to see any move towards a standardized printing configuration for UNIX and Linux.

Also a lack of printing configuration standards on UNIX and Linux meant that the selection of printers that would work was extremely small. That is until CUPS came along. However, I still find CUPS very confusing. So I broke down, bought this book and studied it.

This book is more like a reference book. And it is mostly oriented towards programming with CUPS and writing PPD (Postscrip Printer Description) files.

I was disappointed that it didn't cover more on installing new printer configurations and steps for debugging them. I was also disappointed that it left out an important step of how to install new PPD files.

CUPS requires a PPD file to describe the capabilities of each printer, and how it will interface with the printer and driver (if any). The book lists several web sites for retrieving PPD files. However, the book does not explain how add in a new PPD file in the "Adding Your First Printer" section or anywhere else for that matter.

By visiting other web sites I did find these instructions for adding in a new PPD file:

Put the PPD file in /usr/share/cpus/model
Then restart CUPS: /etc/init.d/cups restart, or
/etc/software/init.d/cups restart

However, there are other places and methods depending on your set up. So this is very confusing.

I was very frustrated that this book would leave out something so simple and necessary.

For programming and writing PPD files, this book has a lot of material, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still trying to configure an HP DesignJet 5000 plotter to plot from my Linux machine.

Also the author deserves considerable credit for tacking on the challenge about writing about Linux and UNIX printing. Very few people are able to write about Linux and UNIX printing in detail. For taking on such a challenging subject and the rarity of this kind of book I gave the book the coveted 4 star rating.

I hope to see more books on Linux printing setup, print drivers and related material.