212 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
212 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
<sect1 id="using-effectively">
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<title>Using Cygwin effectively with Windows</title>
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<para>
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Cygwin is not a full operating system, and so must rely on Windows for
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accomplishing some tasks. For example, Cygwin provides a POSIX view
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of the Windows filesystem, but does not provide filesystem drivers of
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its own. Therefore part of using Cygwin effectively is learning to use
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Windows effectively.
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Many Windows utilities provide a good way to interact with Cygwin's
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predominately command-line environment. For example,
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<command>ipconfig.exe</command> provides information about network
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configuration, and <command>net.exe</command> views and configures
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network file and printer resources. Most of these tools
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support the <literal>/?</literal> switch to display usage information.
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</para>
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<para>
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Unfortunately, no standard set of tools included with all versions of
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Windows exists. If you are unfamiliar with the tools available
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on your system, here is a general guide. Windows 95, 98, and ME have
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very limited command-line configuration tools. Windows NT 4.0 has much
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better coverage, which Windows 2000 and XP expanded.
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Microsoft also provides free downloads for Windows NT 4.0 (the Resource Kit
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Support Tools), Windows 2000 (the Resource Kit Tools), and XP (the
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Windows Support Tools). Additionally, many independent sites such as
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<ulink url="http://download.com.com">download.com</ulink>,
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<ulink url="http://simtel.net">simtel.net</ulink>,
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and <ulink url="http://sysinternals.com">sysinternals.com</ulink>
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provide command-line utilities. A few Windows tools, such as
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<command>find.exe</command> and <command>sort.exe</command>,
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may conflict with the Cygwin versions; make sure that you use the full
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path (<command>/usr/bin/find</command>) or that your Cygwin
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<literal>bin</literal> directory comes first in your <envar>PATH</envar>.
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</para>
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<sect2> <title>Pathnames</title>
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<para>
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Windows programs do not understand POSIX pathnames, so any arguments
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that reference the filesystem must be in Windows (or DOS) format or
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translated. Cygwin provides the <command>cygpath</command> utility for
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converting between Windows and POSIX paths. A complete description of its
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options and examples of its usage are in <xref linkend="cygpath"></xref>,
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including a shell script for starting Windows Explorer in any directory.
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The same format works for most Windows programs, for example
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<screen>
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<literal>notepad.exe "$(cygpath -aw "Desktop/Phone Numbers.txt")"</literal>
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</screen>
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A few programs require a Windows-style, semicolon-delimited path list,
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which <command>cygpath</command> can translate from a POSIX path with the
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<literal>-p</literal> option. For example, a Java compilation from
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<command>bash</command> might look like this:
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<screen>
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<literal>javac -cp "$(cygpath -pw "$CLASSPATH")" hello.java</literal>
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</screen>
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Since using quoting and subshells is somewhat awkward, it is often
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preferable to use <command>cygpath</command> in shell scripts.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2> <title>Console Programs</title>
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<para>
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Another issue is receiving output from or giving input to the console-based
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Windows programs. Unfortunately, interacting with Windows console
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applications is not a simple matter of using a translation utility. Windows
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console applications and designed to run under <command>command.com</command>
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or <command>cmd.exe</command>, and some do not deal gracefully with other
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situations. Cygwin can receive console input only if it
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is also running in a console (DOS box) since Windows does not provide
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any way to attach to the backend of the console device. Another
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traditional Unix input/output method, ptys (pseudo-terminals), are
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supported by Cygwin but not entirely by Windows. The basic problem is
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that a Cygwin pty is a pipe and some Windows applications do not like
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having their input or output redirected to pipes.
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</para>
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<para>
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To help deal with these issues, Cygwin supports customizable levels of
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Windows verses Unix compatibility behavior. To be most compatible with
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Windows programs, use a DOS prompt, running only the occasional Cygwin
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command or script. Next would be to run <command>bash</command> with
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the default DOS box. To make Cygwin more Unix compatible in this case,
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set <envar>CYGWIN=tty</envar> (see <xref linkend="using-cygwinenv"></xref>).
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Alternatively, the optional <systemitem>rxvt</systemitem> package provides
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a native-Windows version of the popular X11 terminal emulator (it is not
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necessary to set <envar>CYGWIN=tty</envar> with <command>rxvt</command>).
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Using <command>rxvt.exe</command> provides the most Unix-like environment,
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but expect some compatibility problems with Windows programs.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2> <title>Cygwin and Windows Networking</title>
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<para>
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Many popular Cygwin packages, such as <systemitem>ncftp</systemitem>,
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<systemitem>lynx</systemitem>, and <systemitem>wget</systemitem>, require a
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network connection. Since Cygwin relies on Windows for connectivity,
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if one of these tools is not working as expected you may need to
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troubleshoot using Windows tools. The first test is to see if you
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can reach the URL's host with <command>ping.exe</command>, one of the
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few utilities included with every Windows version since Windows 95.
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If you chose to install the <systemitem>inetutils</systemitem> package,
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you may have both
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Windows and Cygwin versions of utilities such as <command>ftp</command>
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and <command>telnet</command>. If you are having problems using one
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of these programs, see if the alternate one works as expected.
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</para>
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<para>
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There are a variety of other programs available for specific situations.
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If your system does not have an always-on network connection, you
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may be interested in <command>rasdial.exe</command> (or alternatives for
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Windows 95, 98, and ME) for automating dialup connections.
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Users who frequently change their network
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configuration can script these changes with <command>netsh.exe</command>
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(Windows 2000 and XP). For proxy users, the open source
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<ulink url="http://apserver.sourceforge.net">
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NTLM Authorization Proxy Server</ulink> or the no-charge
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<ulink url="http://www.hummingbird.com/products/nc/socks/index.html">
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Hummingbird SOCKS Proxy</ulink> may allow you to use Cygwin network
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programs in your environment.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2><title>The cygutils package</title>
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<para>
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The optional <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> package contains miscellaneous tools that are
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small enough to not require their own package. It is not included in a
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default Cygwin install; select it from the Utils category in
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<command>setup.exe</command>. Several of the <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> tools are useful
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for interacting with Windows.
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</para>
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<para>
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One of the hassles of Unix-Windows interoperability is the different line
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endings on text files. As mentioned in <xref linkend="using-textbinary"></xref>,
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Unix tools such as <command>tr</command> can convert between CRLF and LF
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endings, but <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> provides several dedicated programs:
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<command>conv</command>, <command>d2u</command>, <command>dos2unix</command>,
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<command>u2d</command>, and <command>unix2dos</command>. Use the
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<literal>--help</literal> switch for usage information.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2><title>Creating shortcuts with cygutils</title>
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<para>
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Another problem area is between Unix-style links, which link one file
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to another, and Microsoft .lnk files, which provide a shortcut to a
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file. They seem similar at first glance but, in reality, are fairly
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different. By default, Cygwin uses a mechanism that creates symbolic
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links that are compatible with standard Microsoft .lnk files. However,
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they do not include much of the information that is available in a
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standard Microsoft shortcut, such as the working directory, an icon,
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etc. The <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> package includes a
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<command>mkshortcut</command>
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utility for creating standard Microsoft .lnk files.
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</para>
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<para>
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If Cygwin handled these native shortcuts like any other symlink,
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you could not archive Microsoft .lnk files into <command>tar</command>
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archives and keep all the information in them. After unpacking,
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these shortcuts would have lost all the extra information and would
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be no different than standard Cygwin symlinks. Therefore these two types
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of links are treated differently. Unfortunately, this means that the
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usual Unix way of creating and using symlinks does not work with
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Windows shortcuts.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2><title>Printing with cygutils</title>
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<para>
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There are several options for printing from Cygwin, including the
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<command>lpr</command> found in <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> (not to be confused with the
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native Windows <command>lpr.exe</command>). The easiest way to use <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem>'
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<command>lpr</command> is to specify a default device name in the
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<envar>PRINTER</envar> environment variable. You may also specify a device
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on the command line with the <literal>-d</literal> or <literal>-P</literal>
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options, which will override the environment variable setting.
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</para>
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<para>
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A device name
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may be a UNC path (<literal>\\server_name\printer_name</literal>), a reserved
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DOS device name (<literal>prn</literal>, <literal>lpt1</literal>), or a
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local port name that is mapped to a printer share. Note that forward slashes
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may be used in a UNC path (<literal>//server_name/printer_name</literal>),
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which is helpful when using <command>lpr</command> from a shell that uses
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the backslash as an escape character.
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</para>
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<para>
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<command>lpr</command> sends raw data to the printer; no formatting is done.
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Many, but not all, printers accept plain text as input. If your printer
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supports PostScript, packages such as
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<systemitem>a2ps</systemitem> and <systemitem>enscript</systemitem> can prepare
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text files for printing. The <systemitem>ghostscript</systemitem> package also
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provides some translation
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from PostScript to various native printer languages. Additionally, a native
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Windows application for printing PostScript, <command>gsprint</command>, is
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available from the <ulink url="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/">Ghostscript
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website</ulink>.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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