The SME Server/CUPS Howto Collection

Introduction

This is the index page for a number of short howtos related to using the CUPS printing system and the smeserver-cups package on SME Server.

If your questions about using CUPS and smeserver-cups on SME Server are not answered by any of these howtos, please send an email to robert2 AT dds DOT nl. Also, if you have suggestions for improvement of these howtos or if you have a howto that could be added to this collection, let me know.

The HOWTOS

  1. The first howto in the collection is Why use CUPS?
  2. If you've decided that you want to give CUPS a try, please read How to install CUPS?, which not only explains how to install CUPS, but also how to uninstall CUPS and go back to the standard SME printing system, LPRng.
  3. After installing CUPS, you need to add your printers to the CUPS configuration. This is explained in How to add and configure printers through the CUPS web interface?
  4. If you wish to add a filtering printer and your printer model is not supported by any of the pre-installed filters, you may be able to find a working Foomatic PPD for your printer on the www.linuxprinting.org website. This is discussed with an example in How to add a Foomatic PPD to your CUPS installation?
  5. You can add plugins to CUPS to extend its capabilities. One such plugin is the pdfdistiller script, which provides the capability to convert print jobs to PDF and put them in a directory of your choice. Here's a howto that explains how to install the pdfdistiller script and configure a PDF printer.
  6. After setting up your filtering and/or raw printer queues in CUPS, you may be left wondering how to print to them from the computers on your network. This is explained for a number of popular operating systems in two separate howtos. One explains how to print to raw CUPS printer queues, the other how to print to filtering CUPS printer queues.
  7. There are a few 'hidden database settings' in smeserver-cups that can be changed from the command line. These are discussed in 'Hidden database settings' in smeserver-cups.

This document is Copyright 2003-2006 by Robert van den Aker. It may be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is not removed.