SunLink Server Printing Terms

In SunLink Server terminology, a shared printer queue is the mechanism through which a collection of print devices is accessed by LAN users with appropriate permissions. A print device is the actual hardware that produces printed output. Print devices can be connected directly to the server (via parallel port), to the network (via a network adapter card), or to a client computer on the network.

The Solaris operating environment, which your SunLink Server computer runs, provides LP Printer functionality that mediates between the SunLink Server system, which sends clients' print requests to the LP service, and the print devices to which the LP service directs the requests. Users access print devices by sending their print jobs over the network to shared printer queues, which in turn forward the jobs to print devices.

In Windows NT terminology, a printer is the software interface between the operating system and the print device. The printer defines where the document will go before it reaches the print device (to a local port, to a file, or to a network print share), when it will go, and various other aspects of the printing process.

In SunLink Server terminology, the shared printer queue is the software interface between the application and the print device. When you administer a SunLink Server print server from Windows NT, a "printer" actually represents a shared printer queue.

A printer driver is a program that converts graphics commands into a specific printer language, such as PostScript. When you add a printer, you are installing a printer driver and making the printer (shared printer queue) available on the network by sharing it.

A print server is the computer that receives documents from clients.

Spooling is the process of writing the contents of a document to a file on disk. This file is called a spool file.

The SunLink Server program supports all of the print devices that the local spooling system supports. The local spooling system is the process that runs on the SunLink Server computer's Solaris system, which handles system printing.

Network-interface print devices have their own network cards; they need not be physically connected to a print server because they are connected directly to the network.