Re: lpd Printer Daemon

[Ola Olsson <oeolsson%tmisnet.com@localhost>]

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996 09:09:16 +0100 (MET),
Matthias Scheler <tron%lyssa.owl.de@localhost> wrote about Re: lpd Printer
Daemon:
> Ola Olsson said:
> > > > unknown# lpc start laser
> > >   ^^^^^^^
> > > You need a properly configured network to use "lpd".
> > 
> > I understand. However, I've had no problems using lpd for the last
> > year with a Canon BJ-200. In fact it working just fine yesterday for
> > printing PostScript files to my laser printer.
> 
> You updated MagicFilter's configuration?
> 
> > It wasn't until I installed Magic Filter 1.2 and ...
> 
> 1.2? I'm still at 1.1b.
> 
> > Enscript that I started with this problem.
> 
> What is enscript?

I found my initial problem. One of the filter archives I was trying
out did not dearchive very neatly (I can't remember which one).
Instead of creating it's own directory in my root directly it "spilled
it's guts" everywhere. I had to manually clean it up. What I hadn't
noticed is that it brought it's own version of lpr and lps? that were
mistakenly left sitting in my root directory. Whenever I made a call
to lpr this version got called and of course nothing worked. I removed
them, and now I have access to the daemon again.

The current problem I have is that the printing process seems to be
looping indefinitely -> "procesing, waiting, processing, waiting, ..."

This is my current printcap file:

#@(#)printcap5.3 (Berkeley) 6/30/90

#lp|local line printer:\
#:lp=/dev/par0:/lp:sd=/var/spool/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

lp|laser|local-printer:|device laser:\
:lp=/dev/par0:\
:sd=/var/spool/laser:\
:lf=/var/spool/laser/logfile:\
        :af=/var/spool/laser/acct: \
        :if=/usr/local/bin/enscript:

#lp|bj200|local-printer|Ghostscript device bj200:\
#:lp=/dev/par0:\
#:sd=/var/spool/bj200:\
#:lf=/var/spool/bj200/logfile:\
#        :af=/var/spool/bj200/acct:\
#        :if=/usr/local/bin/canonLPRfilter:\
#        :mx#0:sb:sh:rs:pl#60:pw#80:

I have no doubt that there is something goofy in there somewhere.

Now, as far as 'enscript' is concerned -- its part of the GNU library.
It is apparently the same as MagicFilter. It's new and updated as of
the last couple of months or so. I found it much easier to compile
than MagicFilter (version 1.2 was the only one I found). The Makefile
for MagicFilter was making everything 'backward'. After making the
toplevel binaries it did a 'make clean' then it tried to do a 'make
install', which of course failed because there was nothing left to
install. I had to rework the makefile. Enscript just seemed better put
together. I haven't really had a chance to compare yet, however, since
I haven't gotten around the 'looping' behavior.

Ola