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Re: Setting up a postscript printer



Quoting Oliver Elphick (olly@lfix.co.uk):
> David Wright wrote:
>   >Quoting Oliver Elphick (olly@lfix.co.uk):
>   >>   >What's the difference b/w "lpr foo.txt" and "lpr -P lp foo.txt" ?
>   >>   >
>   >> There is no difference, so long as lp is the first printer defined in
>   >> /etc/printcap.  -P is needed to address any printer apart from the default
>       >.
>   >
>   >And what happens if lp is not the first, or is not defined at all
>   >in /etc/printcap ?
>   >
>   >(I ask because the behaviour of lpr (package as well as command)
>   >is not like that. You need lp to be defined with either style of
>   >command. Otherwise, lpr: lp: unknown printer)
> 
> I was not aware of that.  Which spool package is this? (lpr, lprng?)
> The man page for lpr (from lprng) says:

lpr, whose man page is more ambiguous:

-P      Force output to a specific printer.  Normally, the default
        printer is used (site dependent), or the value of the
        environment variable PRINTER is used.

> If none of those variables is defined and you have a /etc/printcap, the
> behaviour you are seeing would be a bug in lprng.

Yes, I understand that, and, of course, I'm not using lprng but lpr.

But really what I was asking was "Are there printer packages for which
it is necessary that lp be the first printer defined in /etc/printcap,
which is what your 'so long as...' implies." I've had to move my lp|
several times this year because of office relocation and printer
replacements. I just wanted to know if I was going to be Gotcha-ed
sometime when I try out lprng or cups, since I never bother to reorder
my /etc/printcap entries; I just move the lp| from entry to entry, all
over the file.

Cheers,

-- 
Email:  d.wright@open.ac.uk   Tel: +44 1908 653 739  Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail:  David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
Disclaimer:   These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify
official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.



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