Boring But Useful Post: Printing to BYU Printers from Linux

BYU uses the Pharos print system around campus. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be direct Linux support for Pharos. But linuxers are in luck, because it is still possible to print to the campus printers.

On Ubuntu 9.10 I did the following:

1. Opened http://localhost:631/ in Firefox (not Chrome—this didn’t work for some reason)
2. Clicked “Adding Printers and Classes”
3. Clicked “Add Printer”
4. Entered my regular username and password when prompted
5. On the “Add Printer” page, selected “LPD/LPR Host or Printer” and clicked “Continue”
6. In the “Connection” field, entered “lpd://USERNAME@isis.byu.edu/CampusBW” where USERNAME is my Route Y login (NetID)
7. Clicked “Continue”
8. Entered a name of “CampusBW” and an appropriate description and location, then clicked “Continue” again
9. From the list next to “Make:” I chose “Generic” and clicked “Continue”
10. From the list next to “Model:” I chose “Generic Postscript Printer (en)” and clicked “Add Printer”
11. I don’t know if this is strictly necessary, but I clicked the “Query Printer for Default Options” button on the next page. It may or may not have actually worked.
12. Last of all, under the “Maintenance” dropdown I chose “Print Test Page”. Then when I swiped my card at the Pharos kiosk, the test page showed up, ready to print.

I hope somebody out there in the vast recesses of the Internet finds this information somehow useful.