Users of Apple products like the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch might be aware of Apple’s AirPrint feature. AirPrint is a very convenient way to print something right from your Apple device wirelessly.The print order is sent through WiFi directly to a compatible printer which then executes it. Right now the only printers that works with AirPrint are manufactured by HP.

According to an email in the Ubuntu-Devel mailing list, this feature is now available for Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” and Ubutnu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" as well - although it is in the testing phase for now. Developer Till Kamppeter sent an email to the mailing list inviting testers to test out his patch that enables AirPrint in Ubuntu.

as a first step into support for printing from mobile devices I have made Apple's AirPrint working on Natty and Oneiric. AirPrint is the method how Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch print via IPP. I want to ask all of you to test this feature.

With the support for AirPrint, it will now be possible to use an Ubuntu system as a server to allow a printer, that is not compatible with AirPrint, to print using AirPrint.

Kamppeter’s patch is based on Ryan Finnie’s work on AirPrint support on Linux. Finnie discovered that AirPrint can be made to work on Linux by doing some modifications to CUPS.

Users of Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” can get this feature by simply updating their system.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

However, users of Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” will have to activate the natty-proposed repository first.

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Find the line shown below

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ main restricted

Note: There could be others like multiverse, universe etc. depending on the repositories you have activated.

Add natty-proposed, and save and close the file.

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-proposed main restricted

Now upgrade your system.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

If you find any bugs, you can report it here. You can read more about AirPrint support in Ubuntu here.