Printer configuration used to cause a great many headaches for administrators and users alike. These headaches are now mostly a thing of the past, thanks to CUPS, the free print server using IPP, the Internet Printing Protocol.

Debian distributes CUPS divided between several packages. The heart of the system is the scheduler, cupsd, which is in the cups-daemon package. cups-client contains utility programs to interact with the server, cupsd. lpadmin is probably the most important utility, as it is crucial for setting up a printer, but there are also facilities to disable or enable a printer queue, view or delete print jobs and display or set printer options. The CUPS framework is based on the System V printing system, but there is a compatibility package, cups-bsd, allowing use of commands such as lpr, lpq and lprm from the traditional BSD printing system.

El planificador gestiona las tareas de impresión y estas tareas pasan por un sistema de filtrado para producir un archivo que la impresora puede entender e imprimir. El sistema de filtrado lo proporciona el paquete cups-filters junto con los paquetes printer-driver-*. CUPS en combinación con estos paquetes es la base del sistema de impresión de Debian.

Modern printers manufactured and sold within the last ten years are nearly always AirPrint-capable, and CUPS and cups-filters on Debian Bookworm have everything which is needed to take advantage of this facility on the network. In essence, these printers are IPP printers and an excellent fit for a driverless printing system, reducing the system to CUPS plus cups-filters. A printer-driver package can be dispensed with, and non-free printing software from vendors like Canon and Brother is no longer required. A USB-connected printer can take advantage of a modern printer with the ipp-usb package.

The command apt install cups will install CUPS and the filters. It will also install the recommended printer-driver-gutenprint to provide a driver for a wide range of printers, but, unless the printer is being operated driverlessly, an alternative printer-driver might be needed for the particular device.

Como paquete recomendado por cups-daemon, cups-browsed estará en las colas de impresión del sistema y de red, y las impresoras modernas pueden ser detectadas y configuradas desde sus emisiones DNS-SD (Bonjour). Las impresoras USB se tendrán que configurar manualmente como se describe en el siguiente párrafo.

El sistema de impresión se administra fácilmente a través de una interfaz web en la dirección local http://localhost:631/. Allí miembros del grupo lpadmin pueden agregar y eliminar impresoras USB y de red y administrar la mayoría de los aspectos del funcionamiento. También se pueden realizar tareas de administración similares con la interfaz gráfica proporcionada por el entorno de escritorio o la interfaz gráfica system-config-printer (del paquete de Debian homónimo).