Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
    • Printer Devices
    • What Printer Should I Use with Linux?
    • How Do I Print?
    • printtool The Red Hat Linux Print System Manager
    • Linux Printing Commands
    • Other Helpful Printer Programs and Filters
    • Infrared Printer Support
    • Other Helpful Programs
    • Troubleshooting and More Information
    • Summary
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

What Printer Should I Use with Linux?

Nearly any printer that uses your computer's serial or parallel port should work. One might think that a PostScript printer is the best printer to use with Linux because many programs and text utilities used with Linux and ported from other UNIX systems output graphics and text as PostScript. However, another great reason to use Linux, and Red Hat's distribution of Linux, is that through the magic of software, your $99 inkjet printer can also print PostScript documents—even in color. That's a bargain!

Ghostscript Printing Support

When you use Linux, you'll find excellent support for many different popular printers. Red Hat Linux comes with a special configuration tool, called printtool, that directly supports more than 100 printers. The Ghostscript interpreter, included with Red Hat Linux, is an integral part of Linux printing for many users and supports more than 100 different printers. Table 19.2 lists Ghostscript drivers and supported printers.

You can also verify the built-in printer devices in your Red Hat distribution's version of Ghostscript by directly calling the gs interpreter with its --help command-line option like this:

   # gs --help

The gs command will output several lines of help text on command-line usage, then list the compiled or built-in printer and graphics devices. You can also get this output by running gs and then using the devicenames == command during an X11 session, like this:

   # gs
GNU Ghostscript 5.50 (2000-2-13)
Copyright (C) 1998 Aladdin Enterprises, Menlo Park, CA.  All rights
reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file COPYING for details.
Loading NimbusRomNo9L-Regu font from
/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n021003l.pfb... 2184672 863369 1450640
152624 0 done.
Loading NimbusSanL-Regu font from
/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n019003l.pfb... 2465960 1103598 1450640
158396 0 done.
GS> devicenames ==
[/dnj650c /mj500c /necp6 /lbp310 /la50 /x11alpha /hl7x0 /djet500 /lp8000
/lp2563 /lp2000 /iwlo /lj5gray /jj100 /tek4696 /lj250 /oki182 /imagen
/cljet5 /pr201 /t4693d4 /lq850 /lips3 /x11mono /ljet3d /fmpr /stcolor
/lips4v /appledmp /x11gray2 /ljet2p /dj505j /sj48 /lips4 /la75plus
/x11cmyk4 /laserjet /mj6000c /oce9050 /lbp320 /la70 /x11cmyk /ljet4pjl
/djet500c /mj700v2c /m8510 /escpage /iwlq /x11 /declj250 /deskjet /xes
...

Note that a blank X11 window will open (because the interpreter expects to display a PostScript graphic or document); ignore the window and type the command on the gs command line. After you press Enter, you'll see a list of built-in drivers (not all the output is shown here). For the latest list of supported printers and other information, see Ghostscript's home page at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/printer.html.

Table 19.2. Ghostscript Drivers and Supported Printers

Ghostscript has several important uses, such as displaying PostScript documents. But when you print with Red Hat Linux, Ghostscript is used to translate the PostScript output of programs destined for your printer into a usable, printable form, such as a printer control language. In general, if you have a printer that supports some form of printer control language (PCL), you shouldn't have problems.

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