0 Printer Operation - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 - ADMINISTRATION Administration Manual

Printer Operation
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server supports printing with many types of printers, including
remote network printers. Printers can be configured manually or with YaST. For confi-
guration instructions, refer to Section "Setting Up a Printer" (Chapter 8, Setting Up
Hardware Components with YaST, ↑Deployment Guide). Both graphical and command
line utilities are available for starting and managing print jobs. If your printer does not
work as expected, refer to
CUPS is the standard print system in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. CUPS is highly
user-oriented. In many cases, it is compatible with LPRng or can be adapted with rela-
tively little effort. LPRng is included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server only for reasons
of compatibility.
Printers can be distinguished by interface, such as USB or network, and printer language.
When buying a printer, make sure that the printer has an interface (like USB or parallel
port) that is available on your hardware and a suitable printer language. Printers can be
categorized on the basis of the following three classes of printer languages:
PostScript Printers
PostScript is the printer language in which most print jobs in Linux and Unix are
generated and processed by the internal print system. This language is quite old
and very efficient. If PostScript documents can be processed directly by the printer
and do not need to be converted in additional stages in the print system, the number
of potential error sources is reduced. Because PostScript printers are subject to
substantial license costs, these printers usually cost more than printers without a
PostScript interpreter.
Section 10.8, "Troubleshooting" (page 123).
Printer Operation
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