I’m late to the CUPS party but just wanted to add my $0.02 here and to thank both @sgaray and @sunil for the their question and subsequent answer about how to get CUPS working with FreedomBox. I had struggled to get CUPS working in the past, given up, but yesterday followed these instructions and it’s now working fine.
My interest in running CUPS on the FreedomBox (RasPi 3-based in my case) was that I have an older printer without WiFi capability. It’s perfectly functional and I did not want to replace it merely because I was told that “wireless printing is more convenient” … true, but also a story promoted by printer manufacturers to sell more printers!
Running CUPS on the FreedomBox means that:
- I can now print wirelessly even though the printer hardware is not designed for this.
- I don’t have to buy a new WiFi-enabled printer and do not send my old printer to landfill.
- I don’t have to have yet another device forever in standby mode but still consuming energy. I turn on my printer when I need it, and turn it off when I don’t. In theory you can do that with a WiFi-equipped printer too, but who ever does?
Items 2 and 3 are important from an environmental and sustainability perspective. FreedomBox+CUPS means that I can extend the life of my older printer and avoid buying a new (vampire) device to replace it.
FreedomBox is already a modular set of tools that solves real world problems. Installing CUPS has delivered a valuable new solution to that already impressive toolkit. Should it be included in the default installation? I vote yes, but understand that my usecase is probably a shrinking market as people replace their older hardware.
Thanks again for a really useful thread on this excellent forum.