Adding Printer to RHEL

NOTE: The methods described here no longer work in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. An updated method will be available soon.

Adding a printer to a RHEL-installed machine can be done by remote or if you are locally at the machine. All printers should be added through our department print server, ECE-PRINT-01 (ece-print-01.ece.ncsu.edu). If you have any problems adding a printer or printing or have questions not answered by this page, please email ecehelp@ncsu.edu.

NOTE: The instructions below detail how to add a printer when you are at the machine itself and are logged in via the standard graphical interface. If you are accessing a machine remotely or if you have trouble with the graphical printer config tool, you can use the text-based tool instead. Instructions for accessing the text-based tool can be found here.

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• Starting the tool

• After logging into the machine, run the following command from a terminal/xterm window:

  sudo system-config-printer

• This will start the printer config tool. See Figure 1 below to see what the tool will look like.
• Click the NEW button to start the process of adding a printer. Click FORWARD, then in the next window, input a name for the queue you are creating. This should be the name of the printer. You can also add in a description if you want. When finished, click FORWARD.

• Choosing the queue type

• See Figure 2. Here you are choosing the type of printer queue. Choose "Networked UNIX (LPD)", then click the FORWARD button.

• Setting up the queue

• See Figure 3. You must now designate the print server and queue for the printer you wish to use.
  • For all printers, enter "ece-print-01.ece.ncsu.edu" as the server.
  • For the queue, enter the name of the printer. The printer should be labeled with its name, but if the label is damaged or missing or if your experience problems, ask your administrator.
• Once finished, click FORWARD.

• Designating the printer driver

• See Figure 4. The next window is for choosing the printer driver that the new queue will use
  • Click on the manufacturer line to choose the appropriate manufacturer for the printer you are using. Then scroll through the list of printers and choose the driver that best suits the printer.
  • If you cannot find an appropriate driver, the Postscript driver under Generic (as shown in the figure) will work for most printers.
• Once you select a driver, click FORWARD. You will see a summary screen. If anything appears incorrect, go back and make the necessary changes, otherwise, click FINISH.

• Finish and save

• Figure 5 shows the printer list after you have finished creating a printer queue. In order to save the changes you have made, you must click the APPLY button.
• Repeat the process to add more printers if necessary, otherwise close the config tool. You should now be able to select the queue you created from the print dialog of programs, or use the lpr command.

Gallery - Click on a picture to see in full-size

Fig1 - Printer Config Tool

Fig2 - Choosing queue type

Fig3 - Inputting server and queue

Fig4 - Choose Driver

Fig5 - Apply Changes