A.P. Lawrence

This article is from a FAQ concerning SCO operating systems. While some of the information may be applicable to any OS, or any Unix or Linux OS, it may be specific to SCO Xenix, Open Desktop or Openserver.

There is lots of Linux, Mac OS X and general Unix info elsewhere on this site: Search this site is the best way to find anything.

Printing FAQ

How can I add, modify or remove printers from the command line?

The "lpadmin" command can add or modify printers without using SCOAdmin or "mkdev lp":

 /usr/lib/lpadmin -p printer1 -v /dev/lp -m HPLaserJet
 /usr/lib/accept printer1
 enable printer1
 /usr/lib/lpadmin -d printer1

 /usr/lib/lpadmin -x printer1 

There are other options to lpadmin; see the man page.

Xenix printers can be transferred with a script like this (which assumes that the Xenix hierarchy is located under "/xenixsys"):

 cd /xenixsys/usr/spool/lp/member
 for i in *
 do
 # make sure we aren't overwriting an existing model
 if test -r /usr/spool/lp/model/$i
 then
        echo "Model $i already exists"
 else
        cp ../interface/$i /usr/spool/lp/model
        /usr/lib/lpadmin -p $i -v `cat $i` -m $i 
        /usr/lib/accept $i
        enable $i
 fi
 done

If you modify interfaces or devices of existing printers with lpadmin, you will have to do "/usr/lib/lpshut;/usr/lib/lpsched" to see the effects.