Do not manually edit your /etc/printcap. Any changes will be lost when the printing service is restarted or if your system is rebooted. If you need to create customized printer entries, save the entries in /etc/printcap.local and then restart the printing service.
You can configure printing services using either the command line system-config-printer-tui program or the system-config-printer-gui graphical interface. Most of the detailed information in this chapter refers to the use of the GUI. The overview sections that follow, however, give you a solid foundation in both configuration approaches. You learn the details of these processes in later sections of the chapter.
GUI-Based Printer Configuration Quick Start
Configuring a printer for Fedora is easy but you must use root permission to do it. Make sure that the cupsd daemon is installed and running. If you elect to use printing support when you install Fedora, the daemon and related software will be installed. If you're not sure whether cupsd is running, you can quickly drop to a terminal and use the service command with the name of the service and the status keyword like so:
# service cups status
You will see either
cupsd is stopped
or, if cupsd is running, an acknowledgement, along with its process ID, such as
cupsd (pid 2378) is running...
If cupsd is installed but not running, start the daemon like so:
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/cups start
You can also use the service command to start the daemon, like so:
# service cups start
If you are using the desktop, select System, Administration, Printing. You will be asked to enter the root password. If not, you are using X as root, which is a bad idea. Log out, and then log back in as a regular user! After you enter the root password, the printer configuration dialog appears.
You then simply follow the prompts to define your printer and add local or remote printing services. You should print a test page before saving your changes. Use the printer configuration client or the File menu's Print menu item from a GNOME or KDE client.
The system-config-printer utility is an update to the now-legacy printtool client included with previous Red Hat Linux distributions. Although you might also find related tools (or symbolic links), such as printtool, printconf-tui, and /usr/sbin/printconf-gui installed on your system, you should use the system-config-printer client to manage printers under Fedora.
Managing Printing Services
After defining a printer, you can use the command line to view and control your print jobs, or if root, all print jobs and printers on your system. Table 8.1 contains a partial list of CUPS and related printing commands and drivers included with Fedora.
TABLE 8.1 Print-Related Commands and Drivers
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
a2ps |
Formats text files for PostScript printing |
accept |
Controls CUPS print job destinations |
cancel |
Cancels a CUPS print job |
disable |
Controls CUPS printers |
dvi[lj, lj4l, lj2p, lj4] |
Converts TeX DVI files to specific PCL format |
enable |
Controls CUPS printers |
encscript |
Converts text files to PostScript |
escputil |
Epson Stylus inkjet printer utility |
grolbp |
groff driver for Canon LBP-4 and LBP-8 laser printers |
gs |
The Ghostscript interpreter |
gsbj [dj500, lp] |
Ghostscript BubbleJet printer drivers |
gsdj [dj500, lj, lp] |
Ghostscript DeskJet printer drivers |
lpadmin |
CUPS command-line-based printer utility |
lp |
Starts a CUPS print job |
lpc |
A Berkeley-subset CUPS printer control client |
lpf |
General printer filter |
lprm |
A Berkeley-compatible CUPS job queue utility |
lpstat |
Displays CUPS print jobs and printer status |
mpage |
PostScript text formatting utility |
pbm[2ppa, page, to10x, toepson, toppa, toptx] |
Portable bitmap conversion utilities |
pr |
Text formatting command |
psmandup |
Duplex printing utility for nonduplex printers |
reject |
Controls CUPS print job destinations |
setup |
Launches printer configuration tool |
smbclient |
SMB print spooler |
smbprint |
SMB print shell script |
smbspool |
SMB printer spooler |
thinkjettopbm |
Portable bitmap to ThinkJet printer conversion utility |