Linux Bible, 9th Edition

Configuring a Print Server

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding printing in Linux

Setting up printers

Using printing commands

Managing document printing

Sharing printers

You can configure your Linux system to use printers that are connected directly to it (via a USB or parallel port) or that are available for printing over the network. Likewise, any printer you configure on your local system can be shared with users on other Linux, Windows, or Mac systems by opening up your printer as a print server.

You configure a printer as a native Linux printer in Fedora, RHEL, Ubuntu, and other Linux systems with the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS). To configure a printer to work as a Microsoft Windows style of print server, you can use the Samba service in Linux.

This chapter focuses on CUPS. In particular, it shows you the graphical front end to CUPS, called the Print Settings window, which comes with Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and other Linux distributions. Using Print Settings, you can also configure your printers as print servers so people can print to your printer from their own computers.

If you don't have a desktop or want to print from within a shell script, this chapter shows you how to use printing commands. From the command line, print commands such as lpr are available for carrying out printing. Commands also exist for querying print queues (lpq), manipulating print queues ...