Installing HuskyPrint and Papercut (Linux - minimally managed or personal)

HuskyPrint and PaperCut can be installed with an automated script onto minimally-managed and personal devices. Fully-managed devices already have HuskyPrint and PaperCut installed and do not need to be installed by the user. For more details regarding fully-managed devices, visit the Managed Devices Knowledge Base at Michigan Tech.

If you have a minimally-managed or personal device, HuskyPrint and PaperCut must be installed. The automatic installer provides HuskyPrint and printer drivers for husky-bw and husky-color printers. For how to manually add HuskyPrint and networked printers, please visit their related Linux printing articles.

Dependencies

This guide is intended for RHEL and Ubuntu-based systems. Your experience may vary if you are installing PaperCut on a different Linux distribution not based on RHEL or Ubuntu.

Papercut requirement

If you have a minimally managed or personal device, the Papercut Client is required. You need to install HuskyPrint and Papercut. Please disconnect from the VPN before you print, as it will prevent the Papercut client from prompting for credentials. You can reconnect when you are done printing.

Java

For PaperCut to work properly, Java 11 should first be installed onto your device. Do not use Java versions 8 to 10 with PaperCut as PaperCut will not work properly with these versions.

To install Java 11, open up a Terminal application and run the following commands according to your Linux operating system:

The user must have root privileges to install the following dependencies.

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt install openjdk-11-jdk

RHEL9

$ sudo dnf install java-11-openjdk

You can also download the 64-bit (x64) Java 11 installer on the official website.

Canberra

Canberra is an optional yet recommended Java module that allows the PaperCut Client to play event sounds whenever the user interacts with the client interface. To install Canberra, run the following commands according to your Linux operating system:

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt install libcanberra-gtk-module

RHEL9

$ sudo dnf install libcanberra

PaperCut Installation

Using the automated installer

1. Download the latest printer bundle from the folder
2. Extract the tarball archive in the desired directory:
   $ tar -xvjf mtu-printing-[version].tar.bz2
   The version may change depending on which file you downloaded.
   Note: You can change PaperCut’s installation directory within the setup script using
   $ vi mtu-printing-setup.sh
3. Run the script. Do not use sudo since it will install it in roots home directory; the script will prompt you for sudo access after you run it:
   $ bash mtu-printing-setup.sh
   
   After the script is finished, PaperCut will be installed in the installation directory specified in the mtu-printing-setup.sh script. The script’s default location is: ~/printing/papercut/pc-client-linux.sh
4. Run Papercut. Use the command:
    $ sh ~/printing/papercut/pc-client-linux.sh
5. The printers are installed and ready to use.

Post-Installation

Configuring PaperCut

1. You can edit various PaperCut configurations such as PaperCut remembering your username upon launch. The config file for PaperCut is located within your specified installation directory. By default, this directory is: ~/printing/papercut/config.properties

Other considerations

Remember to disconnect from any active VPN connections before attempting to print with PaperCut, as the PaperCut Client will be unable to prompt for credentials. After you are finished printing you are safe to reconnect.

The PaperCut Client will require reauthorization upon restart, shutdown, or logoff. Otherwise, the PaperCut Client will only timeout after a given time specified by the user when they run their first print job through PaperCut. 

To add husky-bw and husky-color printers to CUPS, admin privileges are required. In addition, a VPN connection may also be required. For more information about connecting to the VPN in Linux, please see the article here: Connecting to VPN in Linux.

HuskyPrint stations will already be available on fully-managed devices. For details on how to request additional networked printers, see our Adding networked printers (Linux) article.

Manually Setup Networked Printers

You can access a list of available PPD files that can be added to your machine and configured to print. There are also many departmental networked printers available to add to a machine.

1. Download the PPD file that you would like to add onto your machine. You can do this by clicking the link in the list.
2. Open a terminal window
3. Enable and start the cups daemon. You’ll need sudo, or root, to run the following commands:
   enable cupssystemctl#
   # systemctl start cups
4. Add printers using the lpadmin command once you have all of the desired PPDs downloaded. You need to have sudo access in order to run these commands. For this example, we will be manually adding husky-bw
   Make sure to replace husky-bw with whichever printer you are adding.
   /husky-bw -P "/edu.mtu://print.lpd -p husky-bw -E -v lpadmin sudo #
   home/printers/Downloads/husky-bw.ppd"
5. You can now print to these networked printers