I got some questions on my printer installation. I manage to use the printer
after the installation but I'm not feeling good about it. My printtool utility (the printer manager) can't
see my printer but when I did a print it did print.
1. So if I'm not the person who install
the printer I wouldn't know there is a printer already install in the system. So how can I tell?
2. If I have multiple printers how can I set one printer to be the default printer?
I did not install the printer using the printtool in my redhat->gnome because the printer don't work at
all by this way.
This is what my printer manufacture suggested me to do and I did it:-

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1. You will need to do the following to install the Lexmark Z32 Linux
Printer Driver files.
* Go into directory which contains lexmarkz32-1.0-1.i386.rpm
* Type rpm -i lexmarkz32-1.0-1.i386.rpm in a Xterm or double click the file
if you use a File Manager.
* If you use kpackage to install the printer driver, please follow the
instruction on kpackage utility to install the printer driver files.
* All Lexmark Z32 Printer Driver files will be copied to the directory
/usr/local/lexmark/z32/

2. By default, the printer driver is setup to Parallel Port printing.
Note: Lexmark Z32 Linux printer driver supports Parallel Port printing only.

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p/s: I want to be able to manage my printer. Is there any sites or article that can help me.

There may be some differences with how RedHat is configured now. I don't know if they've moved to Cups yet or not. But if it uses LPD, that I can help out with.

Printers are defined in /etc/printcap file.

Here is an entry from mine:

lp:lp=:rm=10.0.0.5:rp=xjdirect:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:if=/var/spool/lpd/lp/filter:sh:mx#0

In my case, this is one line, but many systems will have it split with \ characters to continue across multiple lines. I've had trouble in the past making that work for me.

Each field is separated by a :

The first field is the name of the printer. Default is usually lp. (That means, whichever printer you name lp will be your default printer). You gan give a printer multiple names separated by | ex:
lp|canon200

lp= field defines the device the priter is attached too. For Parallel port printers, this would usually be lp=/dev/lp0 In my case, this is a remote printer, so lp is left blank.

rm and rp fields define a remote printer.

sd is the spool directory for this printer. This directory needs to exist.

if= is the input filter. This is a program that converts whatever file you are trying to print into something your printer understands. In the case of printtool configured printers, this will be a complex series of hard to understand scripts that will gracefully handle just about anything you throw at them. Do a search for posts by me to find an earlier duscussion on how to get your feet wet creating simple ghostcript scripts.

the sh supresses banner pages.

mx# is used to configure a Maximum filesize for printjobs. mx#0 means unlimited.

See man printcap for more information on the kinds of things you can put into a printcap file.

Note: Using printtool should be done by root. Changes you make there will affect all users. Many modern apps will let you choose from your printers in a list. Otherwise, the app will probably let you specify a printing command (lpr) in this case, you choose the printer with -P switch. ex: lpr -P canon200

I hope some of this made sense.