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fnevitt · 12:03 AM

I first read about CUPS here in the forums and I decided to give it a shot on my computer. Now that I have got it work I am left wondering what is so great about CUPS? I went to a book store and read about CUPS. To me it sounds like a printing command that is UNIX's answer to the traditional Mac's surperior printing structure. Now that OS X adds the Macs strenghts to UNIX what is CUPS good for?

jbstrick · Sep 3, 2002, 05:28 PM

It allows me to print to a shared printer (Epson 785epx) on a Windows XP workstation.

Millennium · Sep 3, 2002, 06:53 PM

What exactly do you mean by the Mac's "traditional printing structure" being "superior"? Please elaborate.

fnevitt · Sep 4, 2002, 12:07 AM

Originally posted by Millennium:
What exactly do you mean by the Mac's "traditional printing structure" being "superior"? Please elaborate.

I believe that the book I was reading said something about Macs being able to print post script while UNIX's lp command wouldn't allow this, and the way the computer and the printer talk to each other. I can't remember, its was kinda technical and I didn't really understand it very well.
The book is at B&N and it is completely about CUPS and it has a bright red cover. Thats all I know.

CharlesS · Sep 4, 2002, 03:04 AM

Originally posted by Millennium:
What exactly do you mean by the Mac's "traditional printing structure" being "superior"? Please elaborate.

I'm by no means an expert in this area, but I would guess that he probably means that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

sadie · Sep 4, 2002, 03:49 AM

Until i hear more information, i'm with fnevitt. What is so great about CUPS? Tell us, we really don't know.

chris v · Sep 4, 2002, 07:37 AM

so far for me, it's much much faster. Doesn't lose my Epson C80 every other print like 10.1 did, either.

CV

CharlesS · Sep 4, 2002, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by chris v:
so far for me, it's much much faster. Doesn't lose my Epson C80 every other print like 10.1 did, either.

CV

Hear, hear! That bug was so annoying - I hated having to unplug and re-plug the USB cable behind my Mac every other time I wanted to print!

MacGorilla · Sep 4, 2002, 12:51 PM

CUPS is faster, more robust and far easier to manage than the old lp and Print commands Apple used until 10.2. The programming apis for cups is exactly the same across any platform CUPS supports, which makes writing a new printer driver a breeze.

Also CUPS supports many, many more printers than Apple could manage on it's own, works across networks and is really a HUGE step forward for Mac OS X (And Darwin).

::maroma:: · Sep 4, 2002, 01:28 PM

Does it support PostScript though? I'm assuming that it does, since this is an essential part of the Mac's main market.

:haripu: · Sep 4, 2002, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by fnevitt:
I am left wondering what is so great about CUPS?

i am now able to print on my epson printer event though epson hasn't managed to get a driver out.

this doesn't answer your question but it does tell you why this particular question never came to my mind.

still. anyone got some proper technical info for us?

Orthodoc · Sep 4, 2002, 07:28 PM

Does anybody know how I could use CUPS to print to a HP Officejet T45, which HP offers no mac driver for?

fnevitt · Sep 4, 2002, 08:01 PM

All the information posted here has been interesting to read, but the question still stands. What reason would a person have for enabling CUPS over the standard printing function in OS X? Besides for the reason that it runs more printers, and the possibility of a bug fix. As far I can can tell it does not allow me to control my epson stylus photo 820 as finely. IE, I cannot pick the dpi and paper type. What are the technical reason for hacking your system to run CUPS?

P.S. CharlesS you are right I don't have any idea what I am talking about, teeheehee, thats why I am posting the question. :-D

MacGorilla · Sep 4, 2002, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by fnevitt:
All the information posted here has been interesting to read, but the question still stands. What reason would a person have for enabling CUPS over the standard printing function in OS X? Besides for the reason that it runs more printers, and the possibility of a bug fix. As far I can can tell it does not allow me to control my epson stylus photo 820 as finely. IE, I cannot pick the dpi and paper type. What are the technical reason for hacking your system to run CUPS?

P.S. CharlesS you are right I don't have any idea what I am talking about, teeheehee, thats why I am posting the question. :-D

You obviously didn't read my previou post:
"CUPS is faster, more robust and far easier to manage than the old lp and Print commands Apple used until 10.2. The programming apis for cups is exactly the same across any platform CUPS supports, which makes writing a new printer driver a breeze.

Also CUPS supports many, many more printers than Apple could manage on it's own, works across networks and is really a HUGE step forward for Mac OS X (And Darwin)."

CUPS is not a hack in 10.2. It is part of the system now.

ImpishLM · Sep 4, 2002, 08:12 PM

I've always wanted to print in reverse order on my Epson Stylus Color 888 ("8-cubed"), instead of having to resort all pages so that the first page is on top.

Can CUPS help me here?

PS: Amazing that Epson didn't include this option in its drivers, given the way prints come out, each sheet covering the one before it.

CharlesS · Sep 4, 2002, 10:24 PM

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
Does it support PostScript though? I'm assuming that it does, since this is an essential part of the Mac's main market.

Dude, the standard lpr only works with PostScript. That was the whole point of GhostScript, and if I understand correctly, CUPS - to allow lpr to print to non-PostScript printers like the Epson inkjets.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I tried to use lpr on an OpenBSD system a while ago, and I sure couldn't get it to print to any non-PostScript printer...

Although now I'll have to be the one to admit... I don't know (very much about) what I'm talking about here, so I could be wrong...

fnevitt · Sep 7, 2002, 03:48 PM

If CUPS isn't a hack then why did I have to configure my computer through the command line to use it? And now that I have configured it to use CUPS why are the options different in my CUPS config. over the standard Epson/Apple config that came w/ my Epson printer.

Don Pickett · Sep 7, 2002, 03:59 PM

Dude, just because you had to use the command line to configure it doesn't mean it's a hack. It means it doesn't have a GUI interface yet.

I'm beginning to get scared and think some people have never used a computer without a windowing interface.

fnevitt · Sep 7, 2002, 04:05 PM

Well for me I have never used a computer w/o a GUI and when I have to use the command line I do think that I am hacking the system to do something that Apple, for whatever reason, doesn't want poeple to do. I am sorry if I am not a command line freak like yourself, but the Mac OS is all that I have ever known, and as far as I can tell the majority of the poeple that use Macs also do not regulary play around in the command line or even know how to use it.

sadie · Sep 7, 2002, 06:34 PM

Dude, just because you had to use the command line to configure it doesn't mean it's a hack. It means it doesn't have a GUI interface yet.

I'm beginning to get scared and think some people have never used a computer without a windowing interface.

Oddly enough, there are people in the world who never have used a command line to configure their computer. There are also people who have used one, know exactly what they're doing, but still believe that it shouldn't be the default way of setting up something as basic as, say, printing.

That's why I use a Mac.

bhaveshp · Sep 7, 2002, 09:00 PM

The Great thing about CUPS was providing an Epson Stylus Photo 700 printer driver that works with 10.2, something Epson has not bothered to do.

I believe CUPS provides a common framework for UNIX (Linux, Mac OS X) printer drivers.

Arkham_c · Sep 7, 2002, 11:03 PM

There are a LOT of reasons that CUPs is a good thing. Before I go into them, I want to address the "command line" argument.

You do NOT have to use the CLI to configure CUPs. You have two other options:

1) Go to http://127.0.0.1:631/ in a web browser

or

2) Open Print Center -- hold down option when clicking on "Add New Printer". This brings up the advanced options that CUPs provides.

Now, back to why CUPs is better than what we've had before.

1) It lets you print to shared Windows printers over SMB (Samba). This is really important (it lets me print to my HP LaserJet 6MP again even though it has no interfaces that I can connect to a modern Mac).

2) It supports Appletalk, HP JetDirect, Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) over http and ipp, LPR, and USB. Previously all we had were AppleTalk, LPR (which was a pain to configure), and USB.

3) It supports over 1300 different printers. Apple has never offered such comprehensive support.

4) It lets you print to and share all of the above from any Mac to any other Mac or Windows machine.

5) It supports auto-discovery for printers on the LAN (I think this is actually how Rendezvous works for printers -- since CUPs can do this without Rendezvous support).

6) It supports printing quotas -- a great thing for educational institutions and businesses.

7) It uses PPD-based printer drivers, so supporting new printers is easy.

8) It's becoming the UNIX standard. This is a good thing, because the more different vendors that use it, the better supported it will be by printer makers.

The Apple interfaces into CUPs are still a bit rough, but they will get better as Apple has time to work out the kinks.

Group51 · 10:24 AM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:

1) It lets you print to shared Windows printers over SMB (Samba). This is really important (it lets me print to my HP LaserJet 6MP again even though it has no interfaces that I can connect to a modern Mac).

What? Really?

I have my printer attached to a Toshiba laptop running W98 across the room. That laptop is also connected to the internet using the Alcatel USB frog modem. I connect to the Internet over 802.11b using Windows Internet Connection sharing.

Since 10.2, when I do apple-K in the Finder, something called Toshiba appears. Are you saying that if I turned on Windows Printer Sharing, that somehow, using print centre I will be able to print from my iBook to it through the Toshiba? That would be really radical!

gorgonzola · Sep 8, 2002, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by fnevitt:
If CUPS isn't a hack then why did I have to configure my computer through the command line to use it? And now that I have configured it to use CUPS why are the options different in my CUPS config. over the standard Epson/Apple config that came w/ my Epson printer.

First of all, just because it doesn't have a GUI doesn't mean it's a hack. It actually does happen to have two GUI frontends, so I dunno what you were trying to do that you had to venture into the conf files themselves.

Secondly, the most basic things do have a GUI. Print Center is just a CUPS frontend, and for more advanced configuration, you can use http://localhost:631, which is a web interface to CUPS.

Thirdly, there are a few reasons why CUPS is good. For one, you can now print to a whole bunch of printers on OS X that are otherwise unsupported (see this). Also, printer sharing is way more robust now, and anyone can print to any printer in the Terminal by using the lp(1) command. Before, you had to have a LPR PostScript printer (IIRC - but it definitely did not work with any old printer).

In short: more power, more flexibility, better networking, more drivers instantly, a near-standard in the Unix/Linux world, and it's all sitting under the simple GUI of Print Center. Unless you're trying to do something fancy (beyond just adding a printer or turning on USB Printer Sharing), you shouldn't have to venture into the CUPS WebAdmin interface or the CUPS configuration files in /etc.

Also, CUPS has extensive documentation if you're interested in learning (a lot) more.

I think that's more than enough reasons.

ginoledesma · Sep 8, 2002, 11:19 PM

I prefer CUPS over LPRng in Unix/Linux. Its so much more easy to configure and gets things done right.

The problem I'm experiencing with Mac OS 10.2, however, is that my HP Deskjet 895CXi prints PDF files oh-so-slowly its unbearable (roughly 1 page/5 minutes)! And that's just a simple text PDF file generated with LaTeX+dvipdfm. On 10.1 it wasn't as slow, though not that fast either.

Secondly, I noticed that Apple (or HP) is doing something funny when installing a printer driver. Looking closely at the URI in CUPS's web interface, it points to file://dev/null instead of usb:// or something. Modifying it via CUPS results in the printer being unusable for printing.

Junebug172 · Sep 9, 2002, 12:01 AM

So, just so I understand correctly. When I print to my DeskJet 950c, I'm still using CUPS. CUPS is always running on Jaguar, right. I don't really need to do anything more?

I tried the option - select "add printer" thing and got the advanced dialog, but when would I use that? Or the http://localhost:631 thing?

Since I have a well supported DeskJet at home, I assume that CUPS wouldn't really more than Print Center to me.

Fillman · Sep 9, 2002, 06:50 AM

OK. I've read a heap of the documentation in the CUPS installation. IE won't look at it but OmniWeb does. I can't print to my Canon BJC-6200 because there is no driver.

So I installed Gimp print which does have a driver. Now I can't print to a full blown Postcript Level 3 printer at work.

I know I am confused but is CUPS getting tangled up somewhere between PostScript and GhostScript?

can anyone explain to me what to do to have both printers working?

Thanks in advance

Arkham_c · Sep 9, 2002, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by Group51:

I have my printer attached to a Toshiba laptop running W98 across the room. That laptop is also connected to the internet using the Alcatel USB frog modem. I connect to the Internet over 802.11b using Windows Internet Connection sharing.

Since 10.2, when I do apple-K in the Finder, something called Toshiba appears. Are you saying that if I turned on Windows Printer Sharing, that somehow, using print centre I will be able to print from my iBook to it through the Toshiba? That would be really radical!

I can't comment on your exact setup (not familiar with Windows 98), but yes, that's the gist of it. I turned on printer sharing on my Windows XP machine, which has an HP LaserJet 6MP hooked to its parallel port. I then configured CUPS to print to smb://user

ass/host/printershare and it works flawlessly. I can print to it from anywhere in my house using the wireless LAN (iBook) or the wired network (G4 desktop).

I can even print to the queue on the G4 from the iBook, which then prints to the PC. It jsut auto-recognizes the existence of the printer. Neat!