Re: Printing
On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Pat Plummer wrote:
> Bjoern Brill wrote:
>
>
> > I've tried once. Poking in the dark:
> >
> > Linux doesn't do LocalTalk (does BSD ?). The printer port behaves as
> > a "usual" (asynchronous) serial interface. Most printers should be able to
> > cope with this, but some (at least the HP DeskWriter) need 57600 baud in
> > this case. AFAIK, the 2.2.10 Mac kernel shipped with Debian 2.2 supports
> > 38400 baud maximum (and falls back to 9600 if more is requested).
>
> BSD doesn't do LocalTalk either as far as I can tell. The StyleWriter
> apparently expects to see 57.6K by looking at Monroe's documentation on
> the lpstyl filter/driver he wrote.stty says that my ttyS1 device has its
> speed set at 57.6. I'm running the 2.2.18 kernel and don't know what the
> max baud is for sure.
2.2.18 should be OK - up to 115200 baud.
>
> > In any case: I've found a second Mac (running a terminal emulator)
> > attached via null modem cable (most Mac printer cables should just
> > work) etremely useful to debug Mac printer trouble.
>
> I found a good resource on linux printing: www.linuxprinting.org
>
> It suggests using PDQ rather than lpr and has a good setup using
> Monroe's lpstyl driver/filter that I am attempting to set up and run as
> I type. If that fails, I may be asking you more about debugging things
> via the null modem technique you suggest :)-- that is, if you're willing.
You can see what data (if any) the printer gets and make sure the printer
port REALLY uses the right baud rate etc. because you won't see anything
but garbage unless the port settings on the sender and receiver side
match. That's all. Start with "printing" a small text file.
> > On the userland side, try both lpr and lprng. The latter is sufficiently
> > different from traditional lpr lore to break some of ye good olde Unicks
> > hacks while the former tends to act as a big black bit bucket with a
> > broken pipe attached.
>
> This appears to be something I need to install ("command not found").
> Can you elaborate?
>
What command isn't found? Maybe you should be more explicit.
lpr and lprng are two different implementations of a printer spooler.
Usually, you'll want exactly one of them installed. With PDQ, none of them
is required - PDQ prints without spooling.
lprng is newer, more sophisticated and sometimes more stable than lpr, but
tries to be mostly lpr compatible. For basic printing tasks, you can use
the same commands with any of the two (more precisely, the commands have
the same NAME, but the executables are of course different).
Regards,
Bjoern
--
Bj"orn Brill <brill@fs.math.uni-frankfurt.de>
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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