The following message was received from the system administrator of the LRC DEC Alpha UNIX workstations regarding printing:

Subject: LRC Unix printing/plotting
Time: 8:35 AM
Date: 2/27/96

This semester, there have been numerous problems with Unix printing reported to the LRC proctors and the LRC Unix system administrators. The LRC Unix printing procedures implemented in September have not changed this semester and are documented on our WWW page at "http://www.ce.utexas.edu/docs/unix/Printing/Printing.html". Virtually every printing problem that Laurie and I have been asked to look into this semester has been the user's failure to follow the remote printing setup procedures documented on our WWW page at "http://www.ce.utexas.edu/docs/unix/Printing/PrintingSetup.html". In response to these problems, I have written a shell script, "check_printing", that is installed on all LRC Unix systems which (1) verifies that the LRC Unix side of printing is setup properly for the user and (2) tests the communication mechanism to the Computation Center Unix systems using the user's Computation Center account. The message "check_printing: remote printing setup is O.K." or an informative message stating what is wrong and how the user should fix the problem is issued. I am requesting that you inform all users to use the following sequence when encountering a Unix printing problem: (1) the user execute check_printing and resolve any problems noted, (2) the user ask the teaching assistant for help, (3) the teaching assistant execute check_printing, resolve any problems noted, and then ask the LRC proctor for help, and (4) the LRC proctor execute check_printing, resolve any problems noted, and then ask the LRC Unix system administrator for help. Your cooperation is appreciated. Thanks!