Finding your printer

[Dan Murphy]

Hi listers.
I recently connected a printer to my linux box and wanted to see if I
can get it to print.  I have looked at the printing-howto and the
printing-usage howto, but I wonder if there's a way to have Linux
check to see if the printer is there?  I looked in /dev and I see
/dev/lp0 /dev/lp1 and /dev/lp2, but I don't know what they are for.
I'm running kernel 2.4.5, and when I compiled it I enabled parallel
printer support as well as parallel port support.
In the howto, it mentions /dev/lp, but there isn't one and before I
start tinkering around, I was wondering if anyone has had experience
with this.
thanks.