Printing

This chapter describes how to set up printers on a QNX Neutrino system.

The simplest way to print a text file is to send it directly to a printer. For example, if your printer is attached to your computer's parallel port, you could simply type:

cat file > /dev/par

but there are a few problems with this:

It's better to use spooling. When you spool a print job, it's placed in a queue until its turn comes up to be printed.

QNX Neutrino provides two separate mechanisms for print spooling:

If you want to use the lpr family, you have to set up the printer-configuration file, /etc/printcap.

You can use lpr, spooler, or both, depending on how you've set up your machine and network:

Another difference is that the lpd daemon manages all of the defined printers; spooler manages one printer, but you can run more than one instance of spooler at a time.