Setting up Printers on Unix or Linux

Printing on the department-run Unix and Linux systems is covered elsewhere. These instructions refer to self-managed systems.

The simplest way to use the Physics print queues is to use CUPS print software on your Unix/Linux system. This is the default print system for most current Linux distributions.

Find your cupsd.conf configuration file (usually it's /etc/cups/cupsd.conf) and add a line:

BrowsePoll cups.physics.umn.edu

This line should replace any other BrowsePoll line inserted from earlier versions of these instructions.

After restarting the cups service on your computer (eg /etc/init.d/cups restart), all the network print queues should be available to you automatically.

<note warning> In Ubuntu 13.10+, you need to add the BrowsePoll line to /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf instead of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and restart the cups-browsed service instead of cupsd. </note>

You can either:

1. use the method above for wired printing
2. set up a local print queue on CUPS using port 9100 (jetdirect) directly to your chosen printer hostname.

The second method is probably preferable for a laptop, as it will eliminate your cups system from trying to poll ours even when you are not elsewhere, but the first gives easier access to all the available print queues.