# lpr vs. cups



## chalbersma (Jan 9, 2010)

Ladies and Gents which do you use and why.  I'm considering buying myself a printer and wanted to know which system you guys use for yourself.

Also any suggestions on printers would be welcome.


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## graudeejs (Jan 9, 2010)

CUPS, CUPS and only CUPS
ye, and cups + gutenprint, because it has drivers, because you can print about anything.... because it's great and works...

also you can use lpr provided by cusp:
in your /etc/make.conf add:

```
# will use cups instead
NO_LPR=true
CUPS_OVERWRITE_BASE=yes
```


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## MarcoB (Jan 9, 2010)

I strongly recommend a PS printer which I think is much easier to install. I prefer lpr, in combination with apsfilter. My experience is that cups only works (...sometimes) together with Gnome.


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## dennylin93 (Jan 9, 2010)

chalbersma said:
			
		

> Also any suggestions on printers would be welcome.



Stay away from Lexmark printers. They don't seem to work well with FreeBSD.


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## graudeejs (Jan 9, 2010)

MarcoB said:
			
		

> I strongly recommend a PS printer which I think is much easier to install. I prefer lpr, in combination with apsfilter. My experience is that cups only works (...sometimes) together with Gnome.



I have fully customized (lightweight) desktop environment, and CUPS works flawlessly


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## phoenix (Jan 9, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> CUPS, CUPS and only CUPS
> ye, and cups + gutenprint, because it has drivers, because you can print about anything.... because it's great and works...
> 
> also you can use lpr provided by cusp:
> ...



You don't need to overwrite the base.  Either put /usr/local/[bin|sbin] in front of /usr/[bin|sbin] in your PATH, and/or rename the /usr/[bin|sbin]/lp* files.  Then the OS will automatically pick up the CUPS lpr tools.

We've been doing that for years on Linux systems (CUPS installed from source on RedHat Linux 7), and I've done that on my home FreeBSD boxes.

That also keeps the clean separation between base and ports.


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## phoenix (Jan 9, 2010)

MarcoB said:
			
		

> I strongly recommend a PS printer which I think is much easier to install. I prefer lpr, in combination with apsfilter. My experience is that cups only works (...sometimes) together with Gnome.



CUPS works quite nicely with KDE 3 and KDE 4, on FreeBSD, Debian, and Kubuntu (the ones I have experience with).  Even with clunky old parallel port printers, and new USB printers (of course it works fine with network printers).


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## aragon (Jan 9, 2010)

dennylin93 said:
			
		

> Stay away from Lexmark printers. They don't seem to work well with FreeBSD.


They don't work well full-stop.


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## chalbersma (Jan 10, 2010)

Thanks for all they tips guys.


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## phoenix (Jan 11, 2010)

aragon said:
			
		

> They don't work well full-stop.



Lexmark laser printers, particularly in the Optra or T-series, work exceptionally well with CUPS.  Those make up the bulk of the laser printers that we use in the school district.

Lexmark inkjets, like all inkjet printers, don't work so well.


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