How to generate printer ppd for cups?

[Bill Marcum]

On 2009-03-11, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to know how the cups-gutenprint drivers are created.  When I
> install a printer with system-config-printer.py, I get a ppd which
> seems to be auto-generated.  At least, I can't find any file in
> /usr/share/ppd with the same NickName as the file that gets installed
> into /etc/cups/ppds.  For example, I'd like to install this driver:
>
>   "HP LaserJet 4 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1"
>
> Since I have to configure lots of boxes, running system-config-printer.py
> interactively on every box is no option for me.  Ideally, I'd
> run a script, that takes the required information on the command line
> instead of letting me enter interactively into the GUI.
>
Once you have a ppd file in /etc/cups/ppd, you can copy it to other 
machines.  The gutenprint package apparently uses data from xml files 
in /usr/share/gutenprint. 

> On other distros, I can install some package that contain the desired
> PPDs, so I can simply give the desired ppd as command line argument
> to lpadmin.  Am I really forced to use this GUI crap in ubuntu?
>