With the misadventure of Microsoft Vista, several users are migrating towards Linux and its variants. In Windows, sharing a printer was a non-arduous job but Linux is a whole new kettle. Many Linux distros mainly leverage upon Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) to share printers. Let us find out a little more about CUPS.

In layman terms, CUPS is a piece of software that transforms your computer into a print server. In other words, a CUPS computer connected onto a network can accept print requests from other computers and forward them to the connected appropriate printer.

CUPS accepts print jobs from client computers and schedules the print jobs. It later translates the content into printer-understandable language and feeds it to the requested printer. Almost all printer drivers are compatible and built for CUPS as it’s an industry accepted system.

Like the Linux operating system, CUPS is a freeware and was developed by Easy Software Products. Back in 2002, Apple purchased the company and the source code and is currently being employed on Macs. The latest stable release is v1.3.8 and the latest distros should contain the latest version of CUPS by default.