Printing

Some people print everything. They look up a Web page. They print it. They receive an e-mail. They print it. They open any file at all. They print it. Have you met these people? Okay, I should probably be quiet because you might be a very printy person. I'm not against those of the printy sort. I guess I just don't understand the constant printing. I am glad to let my printer feel lonely. The fewer small pieces of paper I have lying around me, the happier I am. Still, sometimes everyone needs to print something.

Luckily, setting up printers in Linux is easy. Now, I know that the moment I said that, eight people just had a problem setting up a printer in Linux. It's easy compared to connecting other hardware. It's easy like using canned cheese spread. It's easy like a Sunday morning. Well, like most hardware in Linux, it's easy for certain brands and models. Support is best for HP and Epson printers, especially inkjet printers. To find out if your printer is supported, you can check the manufacturer's documentation and Web site. Some companies acknowledge Linux and let you know. Otherwise, there is also a great site online for Linux printing, http://www.linuxprinting.org, where you can check whether your printer is supported, see which drivers work best, and look at suggested printers before you buy.

Setting up your printer can involve different steps, contingent on the printer being directly connected to your computer or if you are connecting to the printer over a local area network.

Print Management in Fedora with GNOME

Before you spend a lot of wasted time trying to set up a printer that will not work with Linux, check the Linux Printer Compatibility Database online at http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi. While you are on the Linux Printing site, you can grab drivers for your printer, but most compatible printer drivers are already included in Fedora.

Adding and Configuring a Printer

Print Manager is one of the default icons on your bottom panel in Fedora, so click on it if it is still there. You can also open the Print Manager by going to the main menu > System Tools > Print Manager. You need your root password to run the printer configuration tool and add a printer. Click the New button on the toolbar. Now you are looking at the Add New Print Queue screen. In Fedora, you are not just adding a printeryou are adding a queue, a waiting line. With a print queue, you can send a series of jobs to your printer without having to wait for each one to complete before sending the next.

Step through the wizard screens. When you get to the part about naming your print queue, stop and listen to me. For most users, this name does not matter too much, but if you plan to set up more than one printer, you need to make sure the name is unique and descriptive enough that you can identify your different printers. The name Printer might not be the most unique or descriptive name to choose. The Queue Type screen is where you can choose to identify your printer as locally connected or connected via a LAN. Your locally connected printer should be automatically detected. You can then choose its device location from a list, often a list of only one. The usual device location for a parallel port printer is /dev/lp0, and /dev/usb/lp0 for a USB printer. You must choose your network-connected printer by finding it on your local area network. You shouldn't have any trouble finding the printer on a Windows network. On an Apple network, you can also now share your printer in Mac OSX as a Samba (a Linux/UNIX file-sharing program for Windows networks) shared printer. If you have trouble, get out your install disks and open main menu > System Settings > Add/Remove Applications. In the System category, make sure that System Tools > samba-client is checked and that the Printer Support category is checked.

The next part of the wizard asks for your printer model, as shown in Figure 3.5. You can resist giving Fedora your printer information like a reluctant, guilty puppy snatcher under police questioning, but it is best to just cooperate. Your printer model was probably autodetected for a locally connected printer. If the detection was wrong or missing, choose the manufacturer and model from the list. You will have to choose the manufacturer and model for your network- connected printer.

Figure 3.5. Choosing a printer model in Fedora.

The next screen gives you a happy warning and tells you that you are done. You are then asked whether you want to create a test page. Yes, you do. A test page confirms that the printer is set up correctly and gives you materials for making paper airplanes (see http://www.paperplane.org/). You can now print from most applications by going to the print option in each program.

When you need to edit or delete a printer, just open the Print Manager again. You will see an icon for each printer you have set up. Right-click a printer to edit its configuration. Highlight a printer and click Delete to remove it. You can also edit and delete printers in the Printer Configuration Tool, which is on the main menu > System Settings > Printers.

When you send a job to your printer, you can check the status of the print job by opening the Print Manager. To cancel a print job, highlight that job in the list, and then go to the menu and choose Edit > Cancel Documents.

Print Management in Mandrake with KDE

Adding and Configuring a Printer

With more than one Control Center in Mandrake when running KDE, you have more than one choice of tools to add and configure your printer. Neither the KDE Control Center nor the Mandrakelinux Control Center has a better tool for adding printers. They both use similar, clear language, such as "Add Printer," and both have similar options for configuring your printer. In the end, try both to see which you like best. For right now, I am going to go with the Mandrakelinux Control Center's Print Management tool. Hardware works with the operating system and distribution more than it works with the desktop environment. That makes me want to use the distribution's tool over the desktop environment's tool.

Open the Mandrakelinux Control Center and go to Hardware > Printers to get started. The Printer Management tool (see Figure 3.6) is arranged in a simple layout that will become very familiar to you in Mandrake and in Linux. There is a menu bar, a tool bar, and a main content area. In the main content area are two tabs, one for local printers, Configured on This Machine, and one for network printers, Configured on Other Machines. Click Add Printer to start the Add a New Printer wizard. Most of the steps in this wizard need very little explanation.

Figure 3.6. The Mandrake printing dialog box.

As you go through the wizard, you make some minor decisions about your printer and give Mandrake some information to get started. On the first tab, go ahead and let Mandrake attempt to autodetect your printer. If it fails to find anything, you can enter the information manually. Mandrake is pretty good about finding printers. Mine found all the printers connected to both Linux machines and Windows machines on my local area network. If your printer was found, you can just click Next. If your printer was not found, you can manually point out the location. When you get to the part about naming your printer, give the printer a descriptive name. Even if you have only one printer, a descriptive name just makes more sense. Select the manufacturer and model of your printer. If your printer isn't listed, you should first pop over to the linuxprinting.org site to make sure your model is compatible.

Next, you have the opportunity to set the defaults that you want for your printer, such as paper size and print modes. When you are done with that, the printer will be configured, and you can try to print a test page. Now, we have already said that test pages make good paper airplanes, but don't think that I do not know about hats. I know paper hats (see http://www.cs.uu.nl/~hansb/d.origami/traditional/hat.html).

If you need to monitor or cancel a print job that has been sent to your printer, you again have two choices: the KDE tool and the Mandrake tool. This time, my opinion is that it doesn't matter because they are the same tool in two different wrappers. To use the KDE tool, open the KDE Control Center from main menu > System > Configuration > Configure Your Desktop, and choose Peripherals > Printers from within the KDE Control Center list on the left. Click the Jobs tab to view the printer jobs. Click the trash can button on the toolbar, Remove, to cancel a print job. Open the Mandrake tool from main menu > System > Monitoring > PrintJobs. The interface is exactly the same; you just don't have the Control Center open around the print queue display.