The easiest way to use DICE printers from a linux system with CUPS installed is to use the Informatics CUPS server rather than your machine's local CUPS server (probably appropriate for machines that live inside Informatics). Alternatively, you can add specific DICE printers to your local CUPS server.

Informatics CUPS server

On a Linux system with CUPS installed, this procedure will give you access to all available DICE printers. Simply edit /etc/cups/client.conf to contain the single line:

ServerName infcups.inf.ed.ac.uk

You may need to create this file if it is not already present.

Now lpr, lpstat etc will connect to the main server and you don't need to mess with drivers and names.

Try lpstat -p -d to list available printers. Use something like lpoptions -d if435m0 to choose a default printer. Alternatively, the printers should appear in your distribution's graphical print manager.

Add specific printers

The procedure below adds a DICE printer using the CUPS web interface.

1. Go to http://infcups.inf.ed.ac.uk:631/printers to see the list of available printers
2. Then, go to the local CUPS administration page at http://localhost:631/admin and click on Add Printer
3. Select Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)
4. Enter ipp://infcups.inf.ed.ac.uk/printers/foo for the Connection URL, where foo is the name of the printer you want to use
5. Enter the Name, Description and Location
6. Finally, select the correct model from the list (or go to http://openprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=Postscript and get the appropriate PPD file) and click on Add Printer

If it all goes well, at this point CUPS will show you a list of options to choose defaults for, and then you're done (Vasilis Vasaitis).

-- DavidAspinall - 23 Dec 2009