Linux Printing

Linux Printing

The Common Unix Printing Service (CUPS) is the Linux/Unix implementation of the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). It is responsible of printing services on a Red Hat Linux system.

system-config-printer

The Red Hat GUI tool to configure printing services is 'system-config-printing'. It is a friendly way to configure CUPS priting services. It configure and activates on boot the cupsd daemon :

$ /etc/init.d/cupsd status

Another way to configure CUPS is using the Web interface on http://localhost:631

Line Print Daemon Commands

Although the system uses CUPS to manage the printing services, users can still use Line Print Daemon (LPD) commands :

$ lpc status
Shows the status of all known printing queues.

$ lpr -Pprinter filename
It sends the file filename to the printing queue 'printer'.

$ lpq

LaserJet12 is ready and printing
Rank Owner Job Files Total Size
active root 373 /etc/fstab 10240 bytes
1st root 374 /etc/inittab 10240 bytes

It shows all printing jobs submitted on the printing queues. In this case the file /etc/fstab is being printed on LaserJet12, the file /etc/inittab will be printed after /etc/fstab.

$ lprm 374
It removes the printing job with id=374, so the file /etc/inittab will not be printed.