Re: Default printer

[Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>]

Bruce_Ingalls wrote:
> I recently posted code on gnu.emacs.sources, on how to determine the
> default printer on modern Microsoft Windows systems.
> This code could certainly be improved, to, say, list *all* known printers,
> for M-x customize to select from. I'm sure one of our inclined readers
> could do this far more efficiently, than could I.
> 
> Any thoughts, on good strategies for determining default printers, or
> lists of known printers, on (GNU) Linux compatible systems, (e.g. Solaris,
> BSD), or on OSX, VMS, etc?

10 years ago I wrote printers.el, which used the LPDEST environment
variable (or PRINTER) and the lpstat command (or the /etc/printcap file)
to provide a primitive customization facility for System V (or BSD) Unix
(M-x set-system-printer-default, M-x read-printer):

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.sources/msg/5f609871cca03963

> Should we leave /dev/lp0 as a good guess?
> How about scanning /etc/printcap?
> I suspect Red Hat leaves something in /etc/sysconfig/
> What about CUPS & IPP?

/dev/lp*: No such file or directory

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CupsInEmacs

-- 
Kevin Rodgers