Running Linux, Fourth Edition

Managing Print Services

Linux has a fairly complicated printing system, compared to the printing services most PCs use. It allows many users to print documents at the same time, and each user can send documents from one or more applications without waiting for the previous document to finish printing. The printing system processes the files to be printed correctly on different kinds of printers connected to the computer in different ways. If you print on a network, files can be created on one host and printed out on a printer controlled by another host.

Before we go into the inner workings of the Linux printing system, we would like to point you to http://www.linuxprinting.org, a very comprehensive site with information about printing on Linux. If you have problems or questions concerning printing that this chapter cannot answer, this site should be your next stop.

The whole process happens without much fuss, when you press the Print button in an application or issue a command, such as lpr, to print a document. That document does not go directly to the printer, though, because it might already be busy. Instead, the document is stored in a temporary file in a directory called the printer spool directory. As the word “spool” suggests, the documents get taken out of the directory one by one as the printer becomes free. Each printer has its own spool directory.

When Linux starts, it sets up a printer daemon (an independently running process) called lpd. This process waits around, ...