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

Before you can print from the wireless network, you first have to authenticate to the physics website. This opens up the necessary network ports for your IP address (within a few minutes).

After doing this you can do either of:

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

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.

Disclaimer - this is a specimen setup, but we have no way of documenting variations for all the possible linux distributions.

To set up CUPS in GNOME, go to System → Administration → Printing

In the menu go to Server → Settings….

Under basic settings check Show printers shared by other systems. Close out of basic settings (click OK) and then reopen it and click Advanced….

Under Browse Servers click Add and type cups.physics.umn.edu (not cups.spa.umn.edu as illustrated above!). Hit enter and click OK and then OK again to close the basic settings. The Printer configuration window should now begin displaying all of the physics print queues.