22.8. Other Operating Systems

In addition to Linux, the Printer Configuration module is also available on several other UNIX operating systems. Because each has its own unique print system, the module's user interface is slightly different—just as there are differences between the Linux print systems such as CUPS and LPRng.

The supported operating systems and their differences are:

Sun Solaris and SCO UnixWare Solaris and Unixware have a very similar print systems to CUPS, so the Printer Configuration module has an almost identical user interface. One difference is the addition of a Driver accepts field on the printer creation form, which tells the print system what data format the driver program can handle. In most cases you should just select postscript—or if you want all data to be passed directly through to the printer without filtering, select other and enter binary into the field next to it.

Another unique feature is the ability to control which users can use each printer, using the Access control field on the creation form. The biggest omission on these UNIX variants is the Direct TCP connection destination type.

HP/UX and SGI Irix The print systems on these operating systems lack many options available on Linux, such as the Description field and Banner options. Once a printer has been created, it is impossible to change its destination or driver. Printing via a direct TCP connection is not supported either.

FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Apple MacOS X The print system on these operating systems is very similar to LPRng on Linux. You cannot, therefore, designate a printer as the default or enter a reason why a printer is unavailable or offline. It is possible, however, to specify a maximum print job size and enter alternative names for a printer.

Because none of these listed operating systems include printer drivers, Webmin has to create its own using the ghostscript package. If the module detects that the gs command is not installed, you will not be able to choose a driver when creating or editing a printer. Similarly, to be able to print to Windows servers, the Samba smbclient program must be installed and its path set in the module configuration page.

For all of these listed operating systems, the module will, by default, use their standard print systems. Therefore, if you have installed a different package such as CUPS or LPRng, the module configuration will need to be changed so that Webmin can configure it correctly. See Section 22.6 “Configuring the Printer Administration Module” for details.