CTIO > CTIO Computer Facilities > Printing on a Linux computer

At CTIO we use CUPS as the printing daemon on all of our computers. If the visitor's computer also runs the CUPS daemon then the procedure is easy to perform:

•  Open a web browser, and type the following URL

http://localhost:631

•  You'll be sent to a page similar to the on depicted on figure 1. Click on the Manage Printers link, this will popup an authentication dialog, type root as login, and as password use the root password. Once verified, you'll see what's shown on figure 2. Scroll down, in case your printer list is a bit longer, until you see an Add Printer button, which also appears in figure2.

figure 1		figure 2

•  You'll be directed to a page (figure 3) that displays a web-form, with fields labeled Name, Location and Description. The most important of these is the Name field, since it will allow you to identify the printer later. Also, all of these values can be obtained from ^[1]. Besides Name, Location and Description are used for informational purposes, but they can be left empty if decided. Once finished press the Continue button.

figure 3

•  After this, we'll have to choose the type of device/printer we are trying to configure (figure 4). From the list, choose the LPD/LPR Host or Printer option and press the Continue button. This will send you to a new page, depicted on figure 5, in which you have to type the printer's URI (Universal Resource Identifier). For instance, if you want to have access to a printer named nwp76.ctio.noao.edu, you should type:

lpd://nwp76.ctio.noao.edu/

in the Device URI field. Once done, click on the Continue button.

figure 4		figure 5

•  On next the page (figure 6) you'll have to choose the printer model, although we are talking about Lexmark printers almost all the time, choose the Postscript option from the list and click on the Continue button.

figure 6

•  Finally, you'll be directed to the page shown in figure 7, in which you have to select the driver that CUPS will use to handle the printer. Choose the Generic Postscript printer (en) item and click on the Continue button.

figure 7

And that's it! You should get a page in which the system tells you that the printer was succesfully added to the printers list. Now you should be able to select and use it.

CTIO > CTIO Computer Facilities > Printing on a Linux computer