Subject: postscript error printing to network PCL laserjet

From: "j.g. ungar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 03:34:43 -0500 (EST)

I've got netatalk 1.5pre5 built from source on my RH7 (well, it started
out as a RH7 machine, now kernel 2.4.2) box working nicely, except for
printing from my mac (OS 9.04 box).

The printer is an HP LaserJet 6L (non-postscript) with an Edimax PrintSir
Plus (PS-900+) 'pocket size' print server attached. The Linux machine
prints just fine to this server via LPR, including PostScript (well, the
RH printtool test page works fine anyway).

My papd.conf is pretty minimal:

ophelia:\
	:pr=lp:

Unfortunately I can't print anything from the Mac. Syslog shows:

Mar 20 00:25:09 anubis papd[19861]: child 20140 for "ophelia" from
65345.119
Mar 20 00:25:09 anubis papd[20140]: read_ppd .ppd: No such file or
directory
Mar 20 00:25:10 anubis papd[20140]: lp_init: lock: No such file or
directory
Mar 20 00:25:10 anubis papd[20140]: lp_open failed
Mar 20 00:25:10 anubis papd[19861]: child 20140 done

Hmmm.  I'm not sure how to proceed in trying to get this working. At one
time I was able to print to this printer from the mac, using Netatalk, but
the printer was attached to the PC's parallel port, not on the network
with a print server as it is now.

Any suggestions ?

Thanks -

jonathan ungar

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From: "j.g. ungar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 03:45:02 -0500 (EST)

> Unfortunately I can't print anything from the Mac. Syslog shows:

and I meant to mention, the mac just says "a postscript error has
occurred".

--

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From: alan premselaar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 01:10:38 -0800

Just a couple of ideas.

first, are you *SURE* that your RH printtool is sending postscript to the 
printer?  the printer isn't postscript capable, so that would mean that 
your Edimax PrintSir (which i'm not familiar with) would have to know how 
to translate postscript into HPCL.

secondly, the error messages you're seeing with regards to the .ppd files, 
are basically saying you don't have a PPD file defined.  You'd want your 
papd.conf to look similar to:

ophelia:\
	:pr=lp:pd=<path to .ppd files>:

(my setup is pd=/usr/lib/atalk/ppds/<ppdfilename>)

thirdly, the error messages with regards to the lock file makes me think 
that your /etc/printcap file isn't configured properly.  even though you're 
sending the jobs to a remote printer, you should probably still define a 
spool directory for your lp: definition in /etc/printcap (to be on the safe 
side and to create lock files in)
you'll also want to setup any postscript filters in your /etc/printcap file 
as well.

lastly, and most importantly, if your RH printtool is NOT sending 
postscript, and you don't *actually* have a postscript interpreter 
somewhere between your mac and your printer,  it just won't work.

hope this is helpful

alan

>with a print server as it is now.

----
  there's nothing like the undying sense of reliability provided by modern 
technology.
----
alan premselaar
[email-masked]
www.12inch.com

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From: Akos Szabo <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 10:11:55 +0100 (CET)

> and I meant to mention, the mac just says "a postscript error has

Do You want to print from Quarkexpress?
If I want to print from it, I must disable the binary communication, and
evrything will be fine.

-- 
Ciao:
   Fonya
	Amit a lynx nem mutat meg, azt kár is megnézni.
	   PGP key: `finger [email-masked]`

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From: "Marc J. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 06:58:23 -0800

We had a similar situation with the PPR print queue.  Our solution was to 
use Ghostscript as a filter and have it process the jobs using the ljet4 
filter so that it's converted to PCL.  Our LaserJet 8150DN is okay with it, 
and even allows us to control the duplexing that way (one wouldn't think 
Ghostscript would bother converting the PostScript duplexor codes into PCL, 
but it did).  I haven't worked with the netatalk printing software, but 
could you maybe set up the same sort of thing?

BTW, the 8150DN is a PostScript printer, but after talking to HP, we've 
determined that the Adobe-standard PostScript being generated by our Mac 
clients just isn't compatible enough with Hewlett-Packard's version of 
it.  That's why we're switching to PCL.