OpenBSD: CUPS runneth, plus the NetBSD live CD, (again) why I'm doing this, and Click's new publishing schedule

OpenBSD doesn't use the CUPS printing system by default, and while I've been successful in using Apsfilter in Damn Small Linux (but not in Debian), now that I've figured out all the quirks in CUPS and my office network-printing situation, I prefer to use CUPS to manage the many network printers at my disposal.

OpenBSD tip: Whenever installing software in OpenBSD, it's a good idea to save whatever messages the system prints on the terminal screen for later reference. Nowhere is this more important than in the installation of CUPS, which requires a bit more user intervention than I've experienced before. Who am I kidding? I've never installed CUPS before in my life -- it's always "there."

Anyhow, back to OpenBSD and CUPS. As is always the case, you need to use sudo or su to root to install CUPS:

$ sudo pkg_add -i cups
(enter password when prompted)

or

$ su
(enter password when prompted)
# pkg_add -i cups

The system then kicks out the following:

To enable CUPS, execute '/usr/local/sbin/cups-enable' as root To disable CUPS, execute '/usr/local/sbin/cups-disable' as root

Starting cupsd will overwrite /etc/printcap. A backup copy of this file is saved as /etc/printcal.pre-cups by '/usr/local/sbin/cups-enable' and will be restored when you run '/usr/local/sbin/cups-disable'

As I said above, SAVE THIS IN A FILE. You might need it.

This is not enough to get CUPS going. You must do this as root (or, again, with sudo):

# /usr/local/sbin/cupsd

Now you can open a browser (in X, I used Firefox, but I think you can even use Lynx in a console), go to http://localhost:631 and configure your printer(s) as usual. Since everybody's situation is different, I'll leave instructions for the rest of CUPS up to you, except for one thing:

In OpenBSD, chances are you will need to find the right driver for your printer. I went to the CUPS Web site, more specifically to the Printer Drivers page, found the driver for my printer (an HP Laserjet 2100, if you must know), downloaded it and used it when configuring my printer in CUPS.

That's not all. By default, OpenBSD doesn't tell your system to automatically start the CUPS server at boot. I'm sure there's a more correct way to do this, but I added the following line to /etc/rc.local (again, you must do this as root or with sudo):

/usr/local/sbin/cupsd

Looks familiar, doesn't it? It's the same way we started CUPS in the first place. And now it'll start without any intervention by you on your next boot.

By the way, with CUPS controlling my printing, I can both print in X and from a console. Just use the old lpr command (with the name of the file you'd like to print):

$ lpr filename

Your file will print to your default printer. You can also specify a specific printer, print a certain number of copies, and do all sorts of other clever things at the command line.

NetBSD: While I'm having a lot of fun working with OpenBSD, I'm itching to repeat all of this with NetBSD. I didn't expect the NetBSD Live CD to run on my Compaq Armada laptop, what with the CD using KDE and the laptop only having 64 MB of RAM, but after a lengthy booting process, I did get to a console in NetBSD from the live CD, and wireless networking on my trusty Orinoco WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA card worked out of the box.

But the laptop's doing so well with Debian Etch, I'm wary of making any change. Still, I might keep my data in a Linux partition, wipe off Debian for now and give some other things a try. I can always reinstall Debian if that's the way things go.

As far as my converted thin client test box that's now running OpenBSD, of its three hard drives (any of which can be easily plugged in to run different OSes at any time), I've got one drive that I use mainly for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and another one with Xubuntu 7.04, Slackware 12 and Puppy 2.17 that I use rarely. That will probably become the NetBSD test bed at some near-future time.

Again, why? In case you missed the last time I answered this question, I'm playing around with the BSDs so much ... because they're there. Just as I don't think it's a great idea for everybody to just run Windows, it's also not such a great idea for the free, open-source software world to be about Linux and nothing else. Even if there are 300 Linux distributions out there, there's only one Linux kernel (albeit in many, many versions). The BSD operating systems are developed differently, and while FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and, yes, DragonflyBSD (sorry I haven't mentioned that one until now) all have specialized uses, there's plenty of software available -- at least in FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD -- to run them as any kind of server as well as a fully functioning desktop computer.

And while the FreeBSD project has spawned PC-BSD and DesktopBSD on the desktop (the last one's pretty obviously aimed that way, given the word "desktop" in its name ... but I digress), there's no reason these other operating systems shouldn't be tested, used and enjoyed in the same manner.

Yours in operating-system diversity,

s.

... but wait, there's more:

Interesting blog: Larry the Free Software Guy is looking at "Eight Distros a Week." I went quite far back into his blog, and I plan to return often.

Take once a day: You might have noticed that Click is now publishing once a day, usually at 5 a.m. Pacific time. Rather than pushing out five entries on some days, even more -- or none -- on others, I'm trying to get ahead of myself a bit and make this blog more predictable for both me and you. If "breaking news" intervenes and I have something to say about it, I'll post during the day, but for now, look for a new entry at every morning at 5 a.m. Pacific. And no, I'm not awake that early -- the magic of Movable Type enables me to schedule posts to appear at any time in the future.