Article #161: Common UNIX Printing System 1.1.21

Common UNIX Printing System 1.1.21

Created at 09:00 Sep 13, 2004 by mike, last modified at 13:23 Sep 13, 2004

Hollywood, MD (September 13, 2004) -- Easy Software Products today announced the 1.1.21 release of the Common UNIX Printing System ("CUPS"), an IPP/1.1-based printing system for UNIX�

CUPS 1.1.21 is primarily a bug fix and performance tuning release and includes fixes for the IPP, LPD, parallel, serial, and USB backends, authentication and status processing issues in the CUPS API, and various PostScript and PDF printing issues. The new release also adds support for Zebra label printers and IPP device URI options. CUPS is available at:

http://www.cups.org/

CUPS provides a portable printing layer for UNIX�-based operating systems. It has been developed by Easy Software Products to promote a standard printing solution for all UNIX vendors and users. CUPS provides the System V and Berkeley command-line interfaces.

CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol ("IPP") as the basis for managing print jobs and queues. The Line Printer Daemon ("LPD") Server Message Block ("SMB"), and AppSocket (a.k.a. JetDirect) protocols are also supported with reduced functionality. CUPS adds network printer browsing and PostScript Printer Description ("PPD") based printing options to support real-world printing under UNIX.

CUPS includes an image file RIP that supports printing of image files to non-PostScript printers. A customized version of GNU Ghostscript 7.07 for CUPS called ESP Ghostscript is available separately to support printing of PostScript files within the CUPS driver framework. Sample drivers for Dymo, EPSON, HP, and OKIDATA printers are included that use these filters.

Drivers for thousands of printers are provided with our ESP Print Pro software, available at:

http://www.easysw.com/printpro/

CUPS is licensed under the GNU General Public License and GNU Library General Public License. Please contact Easy Software Products for commercial support and "binary distribution" rights.

Changes in CUPS v1.1.21:

The scheduler did not separate Digest authentication
parameters with commas (STR #882)
Fixed some problems with image printing to custom page
sizes (STR #891)
Removed the remaining scheduler code that did not use
        the "close-on-exec" file descriptor flag to speed up
        program invocations (STR #890)
The "lpr -r" command removed the print file even if it
        was not printed. It now only removes the file if the
        job is successfully created (STR #886)
Revamped the custom page size orientation fix
(STR #127)
The lp, lpq, lpr, and lpstat commands now report when
        an environment variable is pointing to a non-existent
        printer instead of just saying "no default
        destination" (STR #879)
Queue names with 2 periods (e.g. "printer..2") were
not supported (STR #866)

Download · Home Page · Listing

Comments

Submit Comment

From Anonymous, 06:46 Sep 15, 2004 (score=1)

The command 'cupsaddsmb' (v1.19) search first Adobe PS Driver (ps5ui.dll, pscript.hlp, pscript.ntf and pscript5.dll ) before the Windows cups drivers ( cupsdrv6.dll and cupsui6.dll ). The Adobe PS drivers MUST BE presents in the /usr/share/cups/drivers directory to let the command create the W32X86 directory ( if no exist ) The archive to download (cups-samba-5.0rc3 ) provides only cupsdrv5.dll and cupsui5.dll. Reply

From Mike Sweet, 13:59 Oct 04, 2004 (score=1)

"man cupsaddsmb" Reply

From Anonymous, 09:54 Oct 26, 2004 (score=3)

unless i'm missing something, the fact remains uncontested: the references to cupsdrv6.dll and cupsui6.dll aren't resolvable if all you have is cups-windows-5.0rc3. where can one get, either for free or for monetary consideration, the ``new Windows 2000 driver''?

(sorry to ask, but Google honestly isn't turning anything up for me) Reply

From Mike Isely, 21:02 Oct 31, 2004 (score=3)

I've just walked through the cupsaddsmb.c source code and it's clearly looking for a version of the CUPS windows driver that is later than what is apparently available for download here at www.cups.org. All that is offered is cups-samba-5.0rc3. A google search for "cupsdrv6.dll" ONLY turns up this discussion thread and a hit inside cupsaddsmb.c itself (visible on the web elsewhere). Right now I believe cupsaddsmb is simply broken, unless you use the Adobe drivers, because it's looking for a CUPS driver that can't be found. And no, I'm not talking about the base Microsoft postscript driver - that part I understand is not part of the CUPS driver - it's the CUPS driver itself that is missing.

But that's OK. I've just spent the past few days in an infuriating situation trying to generate a device mode for an HP Photosmart 7550, using the CUPS windows driver (5.0rc3), which under Win2K simply crashes (google for "0x6a90450e" to see other examples of this) when attempting to just get into the printer defaults. That led me to trying the Adobe drivers - which work when I test installed them locally. Now I'm trying to upload the Adobe drivers into Samba, but failed because the older cupsaddsmb doesn't understand the new Adobe (Win2K) driver. So I found the later cupsaddsmb and then noticed the reference to the newer CUPS Windows driver in its source, thought gee maybe I should try that first and then found that avenue blocked (see the rest of this thread). I get the impression that I should just stick with the Adobe drivers.

-Mike Reply