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CUPS

The Common Unix Printing System.

CUPS provides the printing infrastructure on Linux, macOS, and many other Unix-like systems: print queues, drivers, filters, and a web-based admin interface (typically at http://localhost:631). Print jobs flow through a chain of filters that convert the input format (PostScript, PDF, plain text, image) into the format the destination printer expects.

Michael Sweet wrote the original CUPS at Easy Software Products in 1999, and Apple bought the project in 2007. Apple stewarded CUPS for over a decade, with Sweet continuing as lead developer; he left Apple in 2019, and active CUPS maintenance has since shifted to OpenPrinting under the Linux Foundation, with Sweet himself leading the OpenPrinting CUPS fork.

CUPS is the print server on essentially every desktop Linux system and on macOS. Driver-less printing via IPP Everywhere is the modern default for new printers, which has reduced the need for the old labyrinth of vendor-specific PPD files.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install cups
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install cups
Arch:          sudo pacman -S cups
macOS:         already preinstalled