Subject: [netatalk-admins] pap, on my Debian/GNU Linux machine, with a laserwriter 4/600, laser , writer bridge, and all sorts of neat stuff

From: swift <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:09:26 -0800 (PST)

I am in great need of assistance, having not been able to get pap to
print, and having mac lp-daemon crash every time I tried to use it :-)
I'm on a mac-only network except for my two linux machines. There is a
Laser Writer 4/600 on a localtalk network, bridged to our ethernet network
via apple's software laser writer bridge, on a MacOS 8.5 machine.
The printer's name is "LaserWriter PS" and is thus defined in
/var/spool/lpd/laser/.paprc
/etc/printcap:
laser|lp|LaserWriter 4/600 on AppleTalk:\
    :lp=/dev/null:\
    :lf=/var/log/lp-errs:pw#80:hl:\
    :of=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ofpap:\
    :if=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ifpaprev:\
    :tf=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/tfpaprev:
Here is a short snippit of the lpd log from when I try to print from Word
Perfect:
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury lpd[3856]: laser: output filter died (1)
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury lpd[3856]: restarting laser
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4211]: starting for ?
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4211]: sending to pap[4212]
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4211]: straight text
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4211]: 4212 died with 2
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury lpd[3856]: laser: output filter died (2)
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury lpd[3856]: restarting laser
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4213]: starting for ?
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4213]: sending to pap[4214]
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4213]: straight text
Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4213]: 4214 died with 2

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong. Gotta love user error. Anyway, I
can't figure it out, and with the lack of a howto of some sort, I'm
completly stuck. I would greatly appreciate help, I have school reports to
print! :-)

Thank you much,
Landon Fuller

_________________________________________________________________
We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds.
        - Linus Torvalds
__________________________________________________________________

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From: Sak Wathanasin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:51:22 +0000

In reply to swift's message of the 29/10/98 at 11:09 -0800,

> Oct 29 11:07:53 mercury ofpap[4211]: 4212 died with 2

I remember getting this when I first tried to set up printing from my Linux
box. Unfortunately, I can't remember what I did to fix this. All I can do for
now is to tell you how I've set things up here, and hopefully by comparing them
with your settings, you'll be able to locate the problem.

my /etc/printcap has

laser|lp|LaserWriter LW600 on AppleTalk:\
        :sd=/var/spool/lpd/laser:\
        :lp=/dev/null:\
        :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:pw#80:hl:\
        :of=/usr/local/etc/filters/ofpap:\
        :if=/usr/local/etc/filters/ifpap:\
        :tf=/usr/local/etc/filters/tfpap:\
        :df=/usr/local/etc/filters/dfpap:

The filters /usr/local/etc/filters/ofpap &c are all symbolic links to (in my
case) /usr/local/etc/psf, which has permissions:

-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        32110 Jul 18 15:19 /usr/local/etc/psf

/var/spool/lpd/laser is set thusly:

/var/spool/lpd/laser:
total 7
drwxrwsr-x   2 root     lp           1024 Oct 12 23:59 .
drwxrwxr-x   3 root     daemon       1024 Dec 27  1997 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root     lp             33 Dec 27  1997 .paprc
-rw-rw----   1 root     lp             84 Oct 11 23:49 .railmag
-rw-r----x   1 root     lp              4 Oct 12 23:59 .seq
-rw-r--r--   1 root     lp              4 Oct 26 01:08 lock
-rw-rw-r--   1 root     lp             32 Oct 12 23:59 status

I think all I needed to do was to create the spool dir plus the file .paprc
which contains

LaserWriter 4/600 PS:LaserWriter

I vaguely recall that it's not an lp problem at all, but some permissions
problem to do with the filters themselves: I think I tracked it down in the end
by running the filters by hand and seeing what happened (eg cat blah
|/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ofpap).

Good luck!

Sak Wathanasin
Network Analysis Limited
178 Wainbody Ave South, Coventry CV3 6BX, UK

Internet: [email-masked]
Phone: (+44) 1203 419996                    Fax: (+44) 1203 690690

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From: swift <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:39:09 -0800 (PST)

Thank you very much, this got me even farther. Looks like I found my last
problem before I get this working...the .paprc file. Perhaps I'm unclear
as to what exactly should be in this file. I have the following:
LaserWriter
"LaserWriter" is the name of the printer, it's on the ethernet network,
being bridged by the PPC, from localtalk. Should I have something else in
my .paprc? I tried what you had in yours, no such luck. After a while, I
still get the LaserWriter 4/600 PS:LaserWriter@*: NBP Lookup failed
...What important point am I missing here?