Check Printer Status
 

Help ! Help ! Help !

I am the beginner for using the Linux, I have connected the serial port printer to my Linux Server, and also I can printing on this printer, but I want to know how can I check the printer turn on or off, or did the printer connect to the com port or not ?

Anybody can tell me Linux has the functions or command to this signal or not ?


Thank you for your help !


Debby.

try lpc


for information try

man lpc

I don't want to confuse you or anything - but I personally recommand CUPS, which is alot more easier to use and is administable via a web browser.

CUPS stands for Common Unix Printing System, and is meant to be a replacement to the old '70's lpr system. It is a lot more secure as well compared to the lpr daemon.

More info can be found at: http://www.cups.org

Thanks DavidPhilips,


I already tried this command "lpc status" before, but it seems cannot check the Printer connect the com port or not ! also i tried if I unplug the printer cable, and then I continue to print the data to the printer, it still cannot saw any error, and print job would lost !

So do u think what problem is or can u give me any suggestion ?

Thank you very much !


Debby.

Thanks Ryanstrayer

I will try to use CUPS !

Thank you very much !



Debby.

Nothing on serial will tell you if the cable is actually talking to the printer, if that's what you're after. The only thing that will come close to that is if you have a new printer capable of IEEE specs on a regular parallel port. Then the kernel will usually detect what type of printer you have on the port, which is a good indication that it's communicating with the printer.

But serial, you will not find anything like that, to my knowledge, unless somebody knows something I don't, which very well could be. You can verify you're serial port is setup by typing 'dmesg' at the command prompt and verifying what you see there. You also may need to setup your serial port with the 'setserial' command. I'm not sure what kind of printer you have, but from what I remember about working with them in the old days, they were pretty picky about settings (hardware flow, baud rate, etc).

You also should be able to send raw text to the device by typing 'ls > /dev/ttySx' x=the serial port number .. ususally 1. If you can't at least do that, it's probably not going to work through lpr.

Hope that gives you some helpful tips. :D