[cups.general] newbie, misc questions

[RW]

On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:30:08 -0700
Gary Aitken wrote:

> I've just installed cups and hplip on freebsd 9, and am totally
> confused...
> 
> The cups documentation indicates jobs may be submitted via the lp or
> lpr commands.  How do I know these jobs are actually using cups , as
> opposed to using the general lpr mechanism?  For example:

The traditional lpr is /usr/bin/lpr the cups version
is /usr/local/bin/lpr. Use the full path or set PATH appropriately.

> /etc/printcap looks like this:
>...
> Does this imply my lp commands are not using cups?  

> What is the relationship between lp and lpr commands, cups,
> and /etc/printcap?

printcap isn't used by cups. lp and lpr are two versions of the
same thing, a bit like dig and host for dns.
 
> Using the web interface, If I try to get the printer defaults by
> clicking "Query Printer for Default Options" I get:
> 
>   Unable to send command to printer driver
>     Unsupported document-format "application/vnd.cups-command".
> 
> Using the web interface, the list of printer options is apparently
> gleaned from the entry in /usr/local/etc/cups/ppd.  The list is i
> ncomplete for this printer.  I moved the original .ppd aside and
> replaced it with one named hp-officejet_pro_8500_a909g-hpijs.ppd fr
> om /usr/local/share/ppd/HP and 

I very new to this myself, but I would have thought that that ppd file
would have been selected automatically if you setup the appropriate
driver. I don't think you can just mix and match. You don't
necessarily get all the printers features from some drivers.