Date: Tue, 5 Sep 95 17:09 EST From: sawmill!rjk@uunet.uu.net (Richard Kuhns) To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Printer setup/configuration Message-ID: <m0sq6BO-000BCpC@sawmill.uucp>
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I have an excellent opportunity to install FreeBSD on systems in a company that has, for the last several years, been running some variant of System V. The System V print spooler, while extremely aggravating in many ways, has a couple of capabilities that we find very useful, and I can't come up with a good way to emulate them under FreeBSD. To be specific: First, when configuring a printer, you can give it a type (a la TERM in termcap/terminfo), which lp can use to set special options on the printer. Then, when you want to print a given file (output from a report) (spreadsheet), `lp -o cpi=16' will print the thing at 16 chars/in, `lp -o lpi=8' will print it at 8 lines/in, and you can have multiple `-o' options on the command line. Plus, since these all refer to the same logical printer, a single command is all that's necessary to disable printing. Second, forms. It's very handy to be able to say `print this on a printer that has Purchase Order forms mounted', and have it either print immediately on an appropriate printer, or stay in the spool until someone loads Purchase Order forms on a printer and informs the system. Is anyone currently fooling with the print spooler? I've been playing with MDQS (Multi Device Queueing System), which seems to have some promise. It already handles forms, and I've just about got enough of a front-end to handle the various `-o' options I need, but there's no network support at all (the MDQS code actually had #ifdef's for V6!!!). If anyone is working on/has a vision for the future of the print spooler, I'd like to hear about it -- I've got to do something, and if it's something other people can use too, so much the better. Please comment... It'd be nice to slip something like this into 2.2. -- Rich Kuhns rjk@grauel.com PO Box 6249 100 Sawmill Road Lafayette, IN 47903 (317)477-6000 x319
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