Chapter 1. Introduction

Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool allows users to configure a printer in Red Hat Linux. It helps maintain the /etc/printcap configuration file, print spool directories, and print filters.

Starting with version 7.3, Red Hat Linux ships with two printer systems. Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool configures the printing system called LPRng. LPRng is also the default printing system. This chapter focuses on using Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool to configure LPRng. For more information on the alternate printing system called CUPS, refer to Official Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.

To use Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool, you must have root privileges. To start the application, select Main Menu Button (on the Panel) => System Settings => Printing, or type the command redhat-config-printer. This command automatically determines whether to run the graphical or text-based version.

You can also force Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool to run as a text-based application by using the command redhat-config-printer-tui from a shell prompt.

To add a printer using the command line version, refer to Chapter 11.

ImportantImportant
 

Do not edit the /etc/printcap file. Each time the printer daemon (lpd) is started or restarted, a new /etc/printcap file is dynamically created.

If you want to add a printer without using Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool, edit the /etc/printcap.local file. The entries in /etc/printcap.local are not displayed in the Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool but are read by the printer daemon. If you upgrade your system from a previous version of Red Hat Linux, your existing configuration file is converted to the new format used by this application. Each time a new configuration file is generated, the old file is saved as /etc/printcap.old.

Figure 1-1. Red Hat Printer Configuration Tool

Five types of print queues can be configured:

ImportantImportant
 

If you add a new print queue or modify an existing one, you need to restart the printer daemon (lpd) for the changes to take effect.

Clicking the Apply button saves any changes that you have made and restarts the printer daemon. The changes are not written to the /etc/printcap configuration file until the printer daemon (lpd) is restarted. Alternatively, you can choose File => Save Changes and then choose File => Restart lpd to save your changes and then restart the printer daemon.

If a printer appears in the main printer list with the Queue Type set to INVALID, the printer configuration is missing options that are required for the printer to function properly. To remove this printer from the list, select it from the list and click the Delete button.