Printing

Printer Availability

To find out which printers are available to you, consult our Printing Services Page.

Installing UNIX Printers

Unix printers are generally installed once per-machine (whereas Windows printers must be installed for each user profile on each machine). Different OSes and distributions have different methods for adding printers (e.g. system-config-printer, lpadmin, CUPS web interface, …); please check the documentation for your OS.

If you do not administer your own machine, ask your administrator to add the desired printer for you.

Unix/Linux machines should use LPD connections to our central print queues:

Connection/Protocol: LPD/LPR Host
Hostname: print.eecs.berkeley.edu
Printername: Your desired print queue, e.g. lws384

How do I Print?

From the command line syntax: lpr -P queuename filename (e.g. lpr -P lws384 report.ps)

If the queue has not yet been set up locally, the following syntax may work: lp -d printserver:queuename filename (e.g. lp -d print:lws384_simplex test.ps). Please consult the documentation for your OS.

How do I check the status of the print queue?

From the terminal window, type lpq -P queuename (e.g. lpq -P lws384).

How do I cancel a print job?

To cancel a print job, do the following.

Issue the lpq command above to view the queue, and note the “Job ID”
Type lprm -P printqueue jobid (e.g. lprm -P lws384 254)

Note: users can only cancel their own print jobs.

Printer Support

Although the print spooler is centralized, support for individual printers is decentralized, and it’s not always obvious who is responsible for the care and feeding of a given printer. If you have a problem with a printer and it’s not labelled with support information, lookup its administrator in the IRIS Network Database or contact Helpdesk for assistance. More information about printer support can be found on the Printing Services Page.