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Before you can use any printer, you first have to install it on a Linux system on your network. A local printer is installed directly on your own system. This involves creating an entry for the printer in a printer configuration file that defines the kind of printer it is, along with other features such as the device file and spool directory it uses. On CUPS, the printer configuration file is /etc/cups/printers.conf. Installing a printer is fairly simple: determine which device file to use for the printer and the configuration entries for it. On Red Hat, you can use the redhat-config-printer configuration tool to enable you to set up and configure your printer easily. Depending on the interface you are using, redhat-config-printer will invoke either redhat-config-printer-gui, a GUI GNOME printer configuration tool, or redhat-config-printer-tui, the same tool with a screen-based cursor-driven interface.
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If you cannot find the drivers for your printer, you may be able to download them from www.linuxprinting.org. The site maintains an extensive listing of drivers. |
Linux creates three device names for parallel printers automatically during installation: lp0, lp1, and lp2. (Most systems currently use lp1.) The number used in these names corresponds to a parallel port on your PC. lp0 references the LPT1 parallel port, lp1 references the LPT2 parallel port, and lp2 references LPT3. Serial printers use the serial ports, referenced by the device files ttyS0, ttyS1, ttyS2, and so on.
When your system prints a file, it makes use of special directories called spool directories. A print job is a file to be printed. When you send a file to a printer, a copy of it is made and placed in a spool directory set up for that printer. The location of the spool directory is obtained from the printer's entry in its configuration file. On Linux, the spool directory is located at /var/spool/cups under a directory with the name of the printer. For example, the spool directory for the myepson printer would be located at /var/spool/cups/myepson. The spool directory contains several files for managing print jobs. Some files use the name of the printer as their extension. For example, the myepson printer has the files control .myepson, which provides printer queue control, and active.myepson for the active print job, as well as log.myepson, which is the log file.
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