Specifications
3-1
Spooler Overview
Chapter 3. Spooler Overview
The job of the spooler, also called the queuing system, is to manage printer use, especially
on systems that have more than one printer. When you submit a print job to the spooler, you
can continue to use your workstation. This chapter discusses the following topics:
• Spooler Concepts on page 3-3
• Generic Base Operating System Spooler on page 3-6
• Spooler Parts on page 3-7
• Spooler Data Flow: Commands and Backend on page 3-8
• Spooler Data Flow (enq Command) on page 3-10
• Overview of Backend Processing on page 3-11
• Virtual Printers and Formatter Filters on page 3-14
• /etc/qconfig Spooler Configuration File on page 3-16