CUPS Web Interface Help


Your default browser should have opened (or will open after 3-30 seconds) with the CUPS web interface. Here you can add and configure your printer.

IMPORTANT: If asked for a username and password, enter 'root' and 'woofwoof'.

Click on Manage Printers, then Add Printer. Enter a name for your printer, e.g. HL1030. The Location and Description fields can be left blank. Click Continue.

The steps after that should be straightforward, and hopefully you will find a printer driver that works for you. Finally you should see a message: Printer HL1030 has been added successfully.

Click on Printers, Configure Printer to change Page Size (if needed) and Resolution (600 DPI is good for most jobs). Click Continue, then Printers again. The Printer State should be idle, accepting jobs.

Finally, click Print Test Page to see if your printer works.

Printer drivers

Puppy has the Gutenprint package, which has a lot of printer drivers. However, if your printer is not among them, you may be able to find a driver online. For example, I needed a driver for my Brother HL2040 laser printer -- it was located, and I have put it permanently into Puppy -- look at /usr/share/cups/model/Brother-HL-2040-hl1250.ppd if you are curious what a printer driver file looks like. Note that the file has extension .ppd.

Two manufacturers with excellent support for Linux are Brother and Hewlett Packard, and Puppy enthusiasts have created PET packages of these.

At the time of writing, the Hewlett Packard Hpliplite package is available in the official Puppy4 PET package repository (package created by MU). Just start the Puppy Package Manager (see Setup category in menu) and do a search for "hpliplite". This package supports a very wide range of Hewlett Packard printers and scanners.

To find specific solutions for other printers or more up-to-date packages, please go to these sections of our main Puppy Forum:

Printing category: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=27
Additional Software: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=11

Have fun!
Barry Kauler