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I noticed that Pat V has moved lprng and apsfilter to the pasture in
slackware-current, with the comment that "These days most people want to
run CUPS which has more or less taken over the printing scene as the
defacto standard print system. LPRng will continue to be maintained
here, but getting it out of the main installation will end the annoying
problem of it overwriting the symlinks for CUPS and breaking it."

As I've just finished installing Slackware 10.0 on my laptop, and have
scheduled my server's upgrade for next weekend, I decided to try CUPS
out on my laptop, and possibly position myself (and my systems) for
Slackware 10.1's use of CUPS.

The cups install went well, but I couldn't see an easy way to hand
configure it. In the end, I used the kdeprinter configuration tool to
set up Cups on my laptop, and printed off the 118 page CUPS Software
Administrators manual that is supposed to be the guide to configuring
the system (the Printing-HOWTo doesn't say much about manually
configuring CUPS other than to point the reader at the CUPS
Administrators manual).

While I don't have a problem configuring my laptop using GUI tools, I'll
have to draw the line at my server. That machine is intentionally
GUI-less, and almost everything is hand-configured (excepting Samba, for
which I used SWAT, but hand-tuned the resulting config file).

So, to my question...

Can anyone here point me at a _simple_ CUPS configuration howto
document? Something aimed at hand-configuration of CUPS, but without the
volume of the CUPS Software Administrators Manual?




- --

Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Enterprise Data Systems
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)
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Lew Pitcher wrote:

> The cups install went well, but I couldn't see an easy way to hand
> configure it.

uhmm, did you try the recommended: http://localhost:631 in your favourite
web browser?

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Dominik L.. Borkowski wrote:
> Lew Pitcher wrote:
>
>
>>The cups install went well, but I couldn't see an easy way to hand
>>configure it.
>
>
> uhmm, did you try the recommended: http://localhost:631 in your favourite
> web browser?

No, because I used the KDE control panel to configure it.

I'm looking for instructions to configure Cups on a system where the
only 'configuration' tools available are commandline tools; a web
browser isn't out of the question, but won't be possible in some of the
circumstances I forsee having to install under.

FWIW, I found rickfrm's "CUPS Configuration Tips in Slackware" webpage
(which has an example cups.conf file), and the "Slackware Linux Basics:
For Slackware Linux 10.0 - Printer Configuration" page at
linuxpackages.net. While rickfrm's page is helpfull, it's a bit sparse
for my liking. And, the linuxpackages documentation just recommends
using a web browser (again, not possible in my circumstances).

So, I ask again, can anyone here point me at a _simple_ CUPS
configuration howto document? Something aimed at _hand-configuration_ of
CUPS, but without the volume of the CUPS Software Administrators Manual?

- --

Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Enterprise Data Systems
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)
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Lew Pitcher wrote:

> I'm looking for instructions to configure Cups on a system where the
> only 'configuration' tools available are commandline tools; a web
> browser isn't out of the question, but won't be possible in some of the
> circumstances I forsee having to install under.

uhmm, just because your cups server doesn't have a web browser, doesn't mean
you can't use http://your-cups-server:631 from a client machine [of course
cupsd.conf would have to be adjusted to allow connections from your client]

> And, the linuxpackages documentation just recommends
> using a web browser (again, not possible in my circumstances).

out of curiosity, what are your circumstances?

> So, I ask again, can anyone here point me at a _simple_ CUPS
> configuration howto document? Something aimed at _hand-configuration_ of
> CUPS, but without the volume of the CUPS Software Administrators Manual?

most likely not. you either go the easy way: web interface, kde's own config
tools, or you have to dive in the documentation to find out 1001 uses of
lpadmin command. then again, you can always ask the folks that know it
best: www.cups.org, their mailing lists, maybe a news group.

Lew Pitcher wrote:
> I'm looking for instructions to configure Cups on a system where the
> only 'configuration' tools available are commandline tools; a web
> browser isn't out of the question, but won't be possible in some of the
> circumstances I forsee having to install under.

why, if i may ask? links/lynx shouldn't be a big problem, i would imagine,
except perhaps on a router, but then you wouldn't be running a print server
off that. alternatively, you could always open up the relevant port so that
you can access it from another computer. (it shouldn't be too difficult to
configure your firewall so that the CUPS port is not visible to the
outside.)

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

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Joost Kremers wrote:
> Lew Pitcher wrote:
>
>>I'm looking for instructions to configure Cups on a system where the
>>only 'configuration' tools available are commandline tools; a web
>>browser isn't out of the question, but won't be possible in some of the
>>circumstances I forsee having to install under.
>
>
> why, if i may ask?

Sorry if I sound a bit reluctant to discuss my circumstances, but my
personal home server isn't the only box I run Slackware on, nor is it
the only box I intend to upgrade.

Rather than get involved in a long (and possibly obtuse) discussion of
why I have certain requirements, lets just pretend that I want to know
how to configure CUPS manually. Let's pretend that it's just a foible of
mine to want to understand how to do this.

If that's not a good enough excuse, let's also pretend that I intend to
perform some of these configurations in runlevel 1, and want to prebuild
and/or automate some configurations.

Will these do as excuses to find out how to configure CUPS by hand? ;-)


- --

Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Enterprise Data Systems
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)
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Lew Pitcher wrote:
> Will these do as excuses to find out how to configure CUPS by hand? ;-)

well, as far as i'm concerned, you can do whatever you like. ;-) it's just
that i'm curious why you wouldn't have a web browser available, or
couldn't configure remotely. and to that i can only say that your cryptic
explanations only make me more curious. ;-)

but obviously you don't have to discuss it if you don't want to. just let
me ask one final question: do you also have a good reason (other than that
Pat relegated it to pasture) for not using LPRng? i mean, if you're
familiar with it, and it does what you want it to, why not use it?

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

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Joost Kremers wrote:
> Lew Pitcher wrote:
>
>>Will these do as excuses to find out how to configure CUPS by hand? ;-)
[snip]
> but obviously you don't have to discuss it if you don't want to. just let
> me ask one final question: do you also have a good reason (other than that
> Pat relegated it to pasture) for not using LPRng? i mean, if you're
> familiar with it, and it does what you want it to, why not use it?

Well, I intend to keep my systems up-to-date wrt the latest Slackware
releases, and PV has a habit of dropping things out of pasture after a
while. While I don't see it as a problem with 10.1 (or whatever he calls
the next release), I doubt that we'll find lprng around in Slackware in
a year or two. That means, either I upgrade to CUPS now, while I have
lprng around as a fallback, or I upgrade to CUPS forceably in a couple
of years.

I'd rather understand what I have to do with CUPS now, than put it off
for a couple of years and find that I don't have any options left to me.

- --

Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Enterprise Data Systems
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)
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Lew Pitcher wrote:
> I'd rather understand what I have to do with CUPS now, than put it off
> for a couple of years and find that I don't have any options left to me.

in other words: it makes you feel good. instead of being forced by
circumstance, you rather force yourself. ;-)

personally, i see no problem in putting off such a switch for a year or
two, if it means i can skip getting into another heavy dose of docs. and
after two years, when pat will have abandoned LPRng altogether, i will go
and compile it myself. i'd say four years from now, when development of
LPRng has stopped altogether, is early enough to start worrying. ;-)

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Lew Pitcher wrote:

> The cups install went well, but I couldn't see an easy way to hand
> configure it. In the end, I used the kdeprinter configuration tool to
> set up Cups on my laptop, and printed off the 118 page CUPS Software
> Administrators manual that is supposed to be the guide to configuring
> the system (the Printing-HOWTo doesn't say much about manually
> configuring CUPS other than to point the reader at the CUPS
> Administrators manual).

May I give you a little hint?
If you look at the files in /etc/cups then you find a few very useful ones.
cupsd.conf is the first one to take a close look at. There is a lot of info
that you need to read, and then according to your needs add/change a few
lines.
Then you add one or two lines to client.conf. Read the comments in the files
and you don't need the manual until you have to do some fancy stuff.
Then you add the printer with a single command (You find that in the docs)
It's in fact not that difficult.
I had to do it quick at my work at it was done in less then ten minutes.
The http://localhost:631 is something I never even tried so far but how
nows, maybee it's an easier way : ) But I prefer not using GUI/links/lynx
on my servers.

Have fun! and good luck.

Micke
--
# The truth lies in there, #
# somewhere in the manual. #