CUPS

Common Unix Print System

UMIACS has replaced our LPRng printing system on our UNIX systems in favor of the industry standard CUPS. This provides us with better support for printers and their specific options.

Printing is only available from UMIACS Networks or when attached to the UMIACS VPN.

A list of printers can be found using,

• http://print.umiacs.umd.edu/printers (available only on UMIACS Networks)
• lpstat -p

You can see documentation about printing from the command line on our RHEL/Ubuntu hosts at

• http://cups-docs.umiacs.umd.edu/help/options.html

Changes from the old LPRng print system

Duplexing

To duplex you need to specify -o sides=two-sided-long-edge instead of -Zduplex when submitting your job. -o sides=two-sided-short-edge can be used for the other duplex orientation. You can specify defaults or create a personal instance of a print queue please see this documentation.

Commands

Using the lpr command is available, although the lp command is the main supported command and has more functionality. We encourage you to use the lp (SysV) commands.

Discrete Queues

Since now the CUPS and WindowsPrinting systems are now discrete. There can be jobs in the queue from the other print system that if they misbehave can cause the other print system queue to stall. Please contact staff for assistance if you run into a problem.

Banner Pages

The queues are all no banner queues by default. If you would like to change this behavior for your account you can for each PRINTER_QUEUE by running

  lpoptions -o job-sheets=standard PRINTER_QUEUE