UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Is there GUI software out there for UNIX that will let me manage print files, and printers. I found a Print Manager in SMT.

That depends. It depends on which UNIX system you are on, what exactly you want to do, which printers you want to manage - and some other variables you haven't told us about.

Tell us more about your requirements and we will be able to telly you more about what you need.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Have an IBM System P, running UNIX 7.0. I am UNIX newbe. Want to find some software to run on UNIX, that will allow me to manage print/files /printers etc. Easily.. GUI. Need to convert printouts to PDF, also.

UNIX is not an operating system, the way NEMA 5–15R is not a wall socket. NEMA 5-15R is a paper standard defining what wall sockets should be. UNIX is a paper standard defining what a standard UNIX operating system should be.

Quite a lot is left up to the distributor. The UNIX standard doesn't say how a UNIX should manage its printers, for example. So that depends on which UNIX you have.

If you're on IBM, you're probably running AIX, but possibly running zlinux as well, uname -a if you don't know.

What you run is "AIX" and most probably you have not "7.0" but "7.1<.something>" running, if you are running 7.x at all.

The AIX printing system is relatively easy - mostly it consists of a single configuration file, /etc/qconfig. There is an interactive tool to administrate AIX systems, the famous "SMIT" (system management interface tool), but even this has the prerequisite that you know what you want to do and how to do it. That means you have to know what a queue is, what a queue device is, how the spooling system works, what a "backend processor" is and similar things. You can even configure a queue to convert to PDF, if you know how to do it.

If you are looking for "do-my-work"-button: you won't find such a thing in any UNIX.

I hope this helps.

bakunin