Cups
Common Unix Printing System is a print spooler. CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol as the basis for managing print jobs and queues.
CUPS provides too the System V and Berkeley command line interfaces. And support, with reduced funcionality, to server message block (SMB).
CUPS add PostScript Printer Description based printing options (drivers).
The printing problem
For years, the printing problem has plagued Unix. Unlike Microsoft Windows or Mac OS, Unix has no standard interface or sytem in place for supporting printers. Among the solutions offered the System V and Berkley printing systems was the most prevalent.
These printing system suppor line printers (text only) or PostScript printers ( text and graphics), and with some coaxing they can be made to support a full range of printers and file formats. However, because each varient of the Unix Operating System uses a different printing system than the next, developing printer drivers for a wide range of printers and operating systems was extermely difficult.
CUPS is widely adopted and so eliminates the printing problem. One common printing system can be used by all Unix varients to support the printing needs of user. Printer vendors can use its modular filter interface to develop a single driver program that supports a wide range of file formats with little or no effort. Since CUPS provedes both System V and Berkeley printing commands, users ( and applications ) can reapt the benefits of this new tecnology with no changes.
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