Title: Printing in OpenBSD Date: 2018-06-19 Edited on 2019-12-13 to add note about gtk2 printing.
Printing in OpenBSD is not difficult to figure out, especially if you’re using a black and white printer that can use the HP LaserJet 5 printer (Which is, to my knowledge, every black and white printer). But getting Firefox to see CUPS printers… Well that was another thing. So here’s a post to help me remember what I did, because it’s not exactly intuitive–though it’s still pretty easy.
The first step, obviously, will be to install CUPS and start cupsd.
# pkg_add cups
# rcctl enable cupsd
# rcctl start cups
Then, go to http://localhost:631, and add your printer. Hopefully your
printer is supported out of the box, because I’m not really sure what to do
there if it’s not. The HP LaserJetSeries PCL 4/5 driver is a pretty safe bet
for any B/W printer, though. BTW, this is true of all operating systems, and
actually a trick I learned from a Windows admin. Once the printer is added to
CUPS, and you’ve verified that you can print to it (using lp(1)), install
gtk+3-cups.
You may also wish to add the package gtk+2-cups to allow printing from gtk2 applications.
That’s it. I didn’t even have to restart Firefox. I don’t know why nobody has documented this weird little quirk, but there it is now. Good luck on your OpenBSD journey!
~take it easy