Cups is a big black box for me, but this is not the only one 
(iceweasel, gcc, ssh...) . For sure it is not like an lpr client which 
you might craft in a few days, but the service it provides is superior. 
I have it running on my Devuan-jessie-alpha2 without systemd and it 
works fine; I print through an old Debian Squeeze or Lenny server.

     Didier