Printing w/o CUPS

1. You need a cable that fits both to your SGI-workstation and your printer. For example, O² and Octane have a "MicroCentronics"-interface.

2. Install Ghostscript.

2. Type into a shell:

gs --help

to get a list of supported printers. Write down a renderer that is suitable for your printer for later use. In this example ljet4 is used.

3. Toolchest -> Find -> Icon Catalog -> Printing -> Printers.

4. Add... --put in here printer name "New Printer Name", e.g. laserjet_txt; Printer Type: choose "Generic Printer" (Text Only): attached to Parallel -> built in --OK. This creates a driver, which prints text-only out of applications.

5. Add... --again "New Printer Name", here e.g. laserjet_ps; Printer Type: chose "Generic Printer" (Text Only): attached to Parallel -> built in --OK. The "laserjet_ps" should be configured as default printer. This one is to be changed later on.

6. Change to the directory:

/var/spool/lp

In the folder "Interface" open the file "laserjet_ps" and erase all characters. Then insert and save the following line:

/usr/freeware/bin/gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q '-sOutputFile='"/dev/plp" -sDEVICE=ljet4 -r600 "$6" 

or the corresponding path to nekoware-ghostscript.

7. In the directory

/var/spool/lp/member

change the content of the file "laserjet_ps" from "/dev/plp" to "/dev/null"

Now you have got your printer fully integrated into IRIX and accessible via lp.