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

Infrared Printer Support

If you are fortunate enough to have a printer with infrared support (such as the Canon BJC 50 or BJC 80, HP LaserJet 6MP or HP LaserJet 2100TN) and a Linux system with an infrared port (such as a laptop), here is good news: You can print without a printer cable! Recent efforts in Linux device driver development have yielded infrared printing (and networking) support, and the latest Linux kernels now have IrDA support built in. IrDA support is supplied as a series of loadable kernel modules and support features such as system logging, networking, serial-port emulation, and printing.

You'll definitely need to read Werner Heuser's IR-HOWTO, found at http://home.snafu.de/wehe/ir-howto.html. Development of IrDA for Linux is still experimental, but offers the promise of wireless networking, communication, PalmOS support, and of course, printing! The basic steps to enable infrared printing involve

1. Determining the correct /dev/ttySX device used by computer for the IrDA port.
2. Enabling your system's infrared port.
3. Creating the correct device(s), using the irattach command to start the port, then using the ircomm module to connect to the port.
4. Crafting a correct /etc/modules.conf entry to enable the port when booting.
5. Ensuring your setup correctly detects and identifies a remote IrDA device.
6. Testing the connectivity of your printer.

After you have configured your system, the easiest way to print to an infrared printer is to create a special printer entry in your /etc/printcap printer database with a special name, such as irlp. Laptop users may need to press certain function keys to disable an existing serial port, or to enable an IR port.

To download the latest set of irDA utilities browse to http://www.cs.uit.no/linux-irda/. For a detailed description of a working irDA printing system for the Canon BJC 80, browse to Dave Davey's page at http://www.physiol.usyd.edu.au/daved/linux/bjc-80.html.

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