Entry tags:

operating systems, os x, printing

Linux CUPS printing is a funny thing.

Every time we reinstall Linux (I think, though, we’re going to stay with Ubuntu for the foreseeable future) I have to reconfigure printing.

When our Lexmark Z51 finally died, everybody stood around and swore they’d never buy another product from Lexmark, So we went out and bought an HP Deskjet 5740, because I’d heard that HP printers had great Linux support.

This is completely true.

But keep in mind we’re talking about Linux support. Very rarely are things point-and-click.

After installing the proper packages and the PPD file, setting up the printer wasn’t too hard. I had to change the CUPS configuration file to make it allow access from the local network, and I also made printing work from the Ubuntu machine in my room—a relatively straightforward undertaking—and so, things were happy on the LAN.

Now that I’m using OS X, though, I’m having to relearn some tricks, and today I learned how to get OS X to print to a CUPS printer.

First, make sure you can access the other machine’s CUPS server. Type something like this into Firefox:

http://192.168.1.xx:631/

You should get the CUPS information page. If you don’t, you probably need to change the configuration to allow access from the local network.

The next step depends on how your printer is set up. In my case, each client must have the PPD file for the printer, as CUPS does no translation, so I open a terminal and type:

lpadmin -p Deskjet -v ipp://192.168.1.100:631/printers/DeskJet-5740 -P ~/Desktop/HP-DeskJet_5740-hpijs.ppd -E -u allow:phil

192.168.1.100 is the IP (or hostname) of the CUPS server, DeskJet-5740 is the name of the printer queue, ~/Desktop/HP-DeskJet_5740-hpijs.ppd is the name of the PPD file for my printer (which can be had from linuxprinting.org), and -E is the magical make-it-work option. -E enables the printer. I have no idea why it is necessary to do so or why it cannot be done from the OS X print administration dialog. I assume -u allow:your_username is not required, but I don't want to break it to find out.

If you can print to your printer without a PPD file, simply leave off that option. In my case, that causes the printer to spit pages of Postscript. Your mileage may vary.