Printing from Macs with CUPS (Mandrake 7.2)

[Chris Parker]

Now I've got Netatalk working between my Macs and my Linux box (thanks
Rod!), I'm trying to print from the Macs to the laser printer connected
to the Linux box.

The ppds are installed and recognised by LaserWriter 8 in the Chooser,
and the Desktop printer appears. But when I print, it fails and
/var/log/messages reports

"No such printer: epl-5500" followed by
"printcap problem: epl-5500".

I think the problem is the CUPS printing system, since the printcap file
contains only one line "epl-5500:". According to Rod Smith's book
"Linux: Networking for your Office", there should be plenty of stuff in
printcap and also a postscript.cfg file in /var/spool/lpd/lp/.

Anybody else got Apple -> Linux printing working under CUPS?

TIA,

--
Chris
----------------------------------------------------------
Chris...@compuserve.com SMS: +447802401572
www.hang-out.co.uk WAP: www.wapmore.com/hangout.wap

[Rod Smith]

[Posted and mailed]

In article <3A300141...@compuserve.com>,

Chris Parker <Chris...@compuserve.com> writes:
> Now I've got Netatalk working between my Macs and my Linux box (thanks
> Rod!), I'm trying to print from the Macs to the laser printer connected
> to the Linux box.
>
> The ppds are installed and recognised by LaserWriter 8 in the Chooser,
> and the Desktop printer appears. But when I print, it fails and
> /var/log/messages reports
>
> "No such printer: epl-5500" followed by
> "printcap problem: epl-5500".
>
> I think the problem is the CUPS printing system, since the printcap file
> contains only one line "epl-5500:". According to Rod Smith's book
> "Linux: Networking for your Office", there should be plenty of stuff in
> printcap and also a postscript.cfg file in /var/spool/lpd/lp/.
>
> Anybody else got Apple -> Linux printing working under CUPS?

I've not tried it with CUPS, but with LPRng, I've gotten it working by
specifying something slightly different in the /etc/atalk/papd.conf
file. Here's what I'm using on one of my systems for one of my printers:

hp4000:\
:pr=|/usr/bin/lpr -Php4000:op=daemon:\
:pd=/etc/atalk/ppds/hp4000-mac.ppd

This pipes the print job through /usr/bin/lpr using whatever parameters
are required. Something like this SHOULD work with CUPS, especially if
you adjust the piped command to whatever CUPS wants. I can't make any
promises, though.

--
Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux & multi-OS configuration