The fourth public beta release of the Common UNIX Printing System
("CUPS") is now available for download from the CUPS web site
at:
http://www.cups.org
Binaries for several platforms are also available!
The Common UNIX Printing System provides a portable printing
layer for UNIX® 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 (IETF-IPP) as the basis
for managing print jobs and queues. The Line Printer Daemon
(LPD, RFC1179), Server Message Block (SMB), and AppSocket
protocols are also supported with reduced functionality.
CUPS adds network printer browsing and PostScript Printer
Description ("PPD")-based printing options to support real world
applications under UNIX.
CUPS also includes a customized version of GNU GhostScript
(currently based off GNU GhostScript 4.03) and an image file RIP
that can be used to support non-PostScript printers.
Sample drivers are provided for HP DeskJet and LaserJet
printers. Drivers for over 1200 printers are available in our
ESP Print software.
CUPS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Please
contact Easy Software Products for commercial support and
"binary distribution" rights.
Changes since the last release include:
- More documentation changes/additions.
- All printing commands now understand the CUPS_SERVER
environment variable and the ServerName configuration
directive in the cupsd.conf file. This allows you to
use a client machine without a CUPS server.
- The lpadmin command now supports the "-E" (enable &
accept) options so you don't have to run the accept
and enable commands for each printer.
- The PostScript filter now properly handles embedded
EPS files and binary data.
- Fixed a nasty little bug in the job handling code that
would cause the scheduler to crash.
- The scheduler didn't properly add printers when the
device URI wasn't set. This caused problems with the
lpadmin command if you specified the model or PPD
files before the device.
- The lpc command no longer uses gets().
- The CUPS library no longer uses cuserid(), but instead
provides and uses a new wrapper function called
cupsUser().
- Formatted man pages are now compressed with gzip if
pack is not available. Also, the configure script now
checks for nroff in addition to groff.
- The IPP and SMB backends are now provided.
- The class and job CGIs are now provided.
- Log files now show the local time.
- Added a TempDir configuration directive and support
for passing the TMPDIR environment variable to filters
and CGIs.
- The scheduler was sending two document-format
attributes for the IPP_GET_JOB_ATTRIBUTES and
CUPS_GET_JOBS operations.
- Remote printers and classes are now named without
"@host" unless more than one printer or class is seen
with the same name.
- Implicit classes are now named "Class" unless a
printer of the same name exists (in which case they
are named "AnyClass").
- The lp command reported the wrong filename when a
print from the standard input failed.
--
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products mike at easysw.com
Printing Software for UNIX http://www.easysw.com