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

If you have a minimally managed or personal device, the Papercut Client is required to print to Michigan Tech’s HuskyPrint printers. PaperCut can be installed with an automated script onto minimally managed and personal devices. Fully-managed devices already have 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.

Dependencies

This guide is written for RHEL and Ubuntu-based systems, but should work on any distribution of Linux that uses systemd and cups. You may need to research the correct package names and consult the manual for your distribution’s package manager if you are not using RHEL or Ubuntu.

Java

For PaperCut to work properly, you must have Java installed on your device. Papercut requires at least Java 11. Papercut is not compatible with versions of Java before 11.

To install the latest version of Java on Ubuntu and RHEL 9, open up a Terminal application and run the following commands according to your Linux distribution:

The user must have root privileges to execute the following commands.

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt install default-ire

RHEL9

$ sudo dnf install java-latest-openjdk

Additional Information

You can also download the installer from Oracle's website but this is not recommended.

The version of java installed can be verified with the following command:

$ java -version

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.xz
   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:
   $ ./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 ~/.local/share/mtu-printing/papercut/pc-client-linux.sh

The printers are installed and ready to use.

Post-Installation

Configuring PaperCut

You can edit the PaperCut configuration by opening its config file in a text editor. The file contains various settings commented out you can tweak. The config file for PaperCut is located within your specified installation directory. By default, this directory is: ~/.local/share/mtu-printing/papercut/config.properties

Other considerations

The PaperCut Client will require reauthorization upon restart, shutdown, or log off; otherwise, the PaperCut Client will only time out after the time specified by the user when they run their first print job through PaperCut.

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.

Adding Departmental Printers

You can also add certain departmental networked printers. Use the instructions for manually adding Husky-BW or Husky-Color, making the following adjustments:

1. Open a terminal window.
2. Enable and start cups daemon. Note: You’ll need sudo, or root, for the following commands:
   $ sudo systemctl enable cups
$ sudo systemctl start cups
3. Select the printer ppd from the available list.
4. Click on the link to the file you wish to download. The file will automatically download to your machine.
5. Add printers using the lpadmin command. Note: You’ll need sudo, or root, for the following command (remember to replace the text in brackets)
   $ lpadmin -p <printer-name> -E -v lpd://print.mtu.edu/<printer-name> -P <ppd-file>