AUTHOR: Uli Fahrenberg <uli at math dot auc dot dk>
AUTHOR: Original hint by Declan Moriarty <declan dot moriarty at ntlworld dot ie>
DATE: 2003-09-30
LICENSE: GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.2
SYNOPSIS: Printing From Scratch
DESCRIPTION:
Do-it-yourself guide for setting up your computer for printing. Also useful
for troubleshooting. We start with kernel configuration, and at the end you
will (hopefully) get your printer to print a ps file.
PREREQUISITES:
ghostscript (AFPL, GNU, ESP, whatever; see BLFS book for details)
Optional: a2ps and psutils (again: See BLFS book for how to install these)
HINT:
Setting up a Linux box for printing can be very easy (with a bit of luck). If
you your setup is simple: One computer and one printer which you want to
communicate, and that's about it, this hint is for you. If you want to share
your printer between several computers or anything fancy like this, I cannot
help you.
Step 1:
Check that you have printer support in your kernel, either compiled-in or as a
module. My config is as follows; you might not need the last two PARPORT_*
options enabled:
CONFIG_PARPORT=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_CML1=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_PRINTER=y
Step 2:
Check if your printer is working and connected:
echo -en "blah\f\r" > /dev/lp0
(substitute lp0 with the port your printer is connected to)
If your printer spits out a piece of paper with the word `blah' on it,
good. If it doesn't, worry.
If your printer is an Epson, the above command most probably will not work. In
this case, the following info contributed by Jeroen Coumans might help:
Epson printers don't work without first being given a special
character. The gimp-print util escputil is commonly used for that
(it's probably possible to do this without first installing
gimp-print, but I don't know how). This is the command which works for
me (Stylus C80):
escputil -r /dev/usb/lp0 -i
You might want to install gimp-print anyway (I won't tell you how, though (but
it appears to be a piece of cake)), as Epson printers are poorly supported by
Ghostscript. Otherwise, to build just escputil,
./configure && make -C lib && make -C src/escputil
worked for me.
Step 3:
Install your favourite version of Ghostscript.
Step 4:
Type gs -h at a prompt and select your printer from the pageful of drivers
that it gives up. If your driver is not shown, go back to step 3 and install
another version of Ghostscript. AFPL and ESP Ghostscript differ in what
printers are supported.
If you don't know what driver to select to get your printer working, go to
http://www.linuxprinting.org/
and search their database for your printer. You might be told that you need
some additional software; HPIJS, pnm2ppa, or others. If you do need some extra
software, you're on your own. Here we only deal with Ghostscript-supported
printers. (But read on, the hint might still be of use for you.)
Step 5:
Test your setup. Get yourself a ps file (pdf will do, too), and run
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER -sDEVICE=<your-printer-driver> \
-sOutputFile=/tmp/testit <your-file>
You'll find some ps files in the Ghostscript examples directory; with me this
is /usr/share/ghostscript/8.00/examples/. This command should give you a
(probably rather large) binary file /tmp/testit; if you're lucky (I was),
running
file /tmp/testit
will identify it as printer data. It may also tell you that the paper size does
not fit what you have in your printer; if this is the case, adding
-sPAPERSIZE=<your-papersize> to the gs command above will help. The other
options above mean:
-q tells gs not to display anything & saves it looking for X.
-dBATCH tells gs to quit after processing - always a good idea.
-dNOPAUSE gs will not wait for a key-press after each page.
-dSAFER stops gs from deleting or zapping anything.
-sDEVICE= your printer driver. Be exact and case sensitive. gs is
stupid. Use the spelling on the info at 'gs -h'.
-sOutputFile= write to this output file (congratulations for guessing!)
If everything looks OK, you can
cat /tmp/testit > /dev/lp0
(again, replace lp0 with the port your printer is connected to). This should
get <your-file> out to <your-printer>.
Both the commands above might give you some trouble with permissions if you do
them as an ordinary user. If the gs one does, execute
chmod 4777 /tmp
and kick yourself for running a machine unusable for ordinary users. If the
cat command bails out with some 'Cannot write to /dev/lp0' blah, you can
either decide that only root should be allowed to access your printer, or you
can be a little lax on some (minor) security issues and do a
chmod a+rw /dev/lp0
If you want to use the lpr script below for printing, you should do the
latter.
Step 6 (optional):
If you got here, you have your printer working. You can leave it at this; what
you did in step 5 was printing after all. If you want to be slightly more
fancy, the script below will provide you with an lpr command, to be used
either by calling
lpr <some-file>
or by having lpr as (the last) part of a pipe. This should let you use most of
your favorite application's `Print' buttons/commands directly.
Another advantage of the script below is that it does not make use of
temporary files, thus avoiding a) cluttering /tmp with all kinda crap, and b)
some security hazards. On the other hand, if you want ordinary users to print,
you have to give them access to /dev/lp0 (or whatever port your printer is
connected to), see above.
Here we have the script; as you can see, there's some adjusting to do for
you. I have yet to encounter applications that won't print with this script;
if you do, please notify me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cat > /usr/bin/lpr << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
#################### Adjust to your needs/desires.
DEVICE=ljet4
LP=lp0
PAPER=a4
LOCKFILE=/tmp/.${LP}-lock
#################### End Adjust
# Prints file to printer $DEVICE connected at /dev/$LP,
# using paper size $PAPER.
# Usage: lpr <ps or pdf file> ( or cat <ps or pdf file> | lpr )
# Uli Fahrenberg, early 2003. This file is in the public domain.
if [ -e $LOCKFILE ] ; then
echo "Error: printer is locked ($LOCKFILE exists)"
exit 1
fi
FILE=$1
if ! [ X$FILE = X ] ; then ### We have a filename as an argument.
if ! [ -r $FILE ] ; then
echo "Error: Cannot read file $FILE"
exit 1
fi
FTYPE=$(file -bL $FILE | awk '{print $1}')
if ! [ $FTYPE = 'PDF' ] && ! [ $FTYPE = 'PostScript' ] ; then
echo "Error: $FILE is not a PS or PDF file."
exit 1
fi
### Comment this out if you want lpr to be quiet:
echo -n "Printing $FILE... "
(touch $LOCKFILE ; \
trap 'rm -f $LOCKFILE' EXIT ; \
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER -sDEVICE=$DEVICE \
-sPAPERSIZE=$PAPER -sOutputFile=- $FILE \
> /dev/$LP ) &
### Without the sleep, some apps delete $FILE
### faster than gs can read it:
sleep 1
### Comment this out if you want lpr to be quiet:
echo "Done."
else ### We have no filename argument, so we try stdin
DATA="$(</dev/stdin)"
(touch $LOCKFILE ; \
trap 'rm -f $LOCKFILE' EXIT ; \
echo "$DATA" \
| gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER -sDEVICE=$DEVICE \
-sPAPERSIZE=$PAPER -sOutputFile=- - \
> /dev/$LP ) &
fi
EOF
chmod 755 /usr/bin/lpr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 7 (even more optional):
So now you can print postscript and pdf files on your printer. If you want to
print other kinds of files (plain text files, say, e.g. LFS hints...), you
might find the a2ps (AnyToPS) package handy. Also, for manipulating postscript
files, the psutils package is a good thing to have installed. Both packages
are covered in the BLFS book.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
This hint is a reworked edition of the Printing Minority Report, a printing
hint originally written by Declan Moriarty. He was doing all the ground work
of sections 1 throuch 5; I was reading and using his hint and cooking up the
lpr script, and the next thing I knew was that Declan handed over the hint to
me.
Bill Maltby and Jeroen Coumans were also contributing some tidbits.
CHANGELOG:
[2003-05-24]
* Adopted hint from Declan.
[2003-06-29]
* Submitted pfs.txt version 1.
[2003-07-01]
* Inserted `sleep 1' into lpr script, to make gv happy.
[2003-09-30]
* Converted to new fancy format.