Re: Network Printing, from an Apple, to Debian.

[brian moore <bem@cmc.net>]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 08:42:12AM -0500, Nathan E Norman wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 08:21:46AM -0400, Adam Scriven wrote:
> > Hey all.
> > 
> > I'm picking up a new computer tomorrow, that will be a fileserver on my 
> > home network.  One of the things I need it to do is share files/printer 
> > with Windows (samba) and Macs (netatalk+asun).  I've setup and run both of 
> > those programs on other systems, so that's OK.  My problem is, I need the 
> > printer (Canon BJC-1000) to be available to the Mac as a LaserWriter (since 
> > the Mac+ that I have only reliably prints to a LaserWriter, AFAIK).
> 
> The Mac+ wants to talk Postscript to the Laserwriter, yes?  If so,
> this should be no problem ... I'd use lprng and magicfilter to do the
> dirty work on the Debian side, and configure netatalk to share out a
> "Laserwriter" (I've not gotten around to doing this with my lonely
> Macs at home, alas).

And because I have no printer on my machine at work, but there is one on
a neighboring Windows machine, I do even scarier things... see, the Mac
guy doesn't have a printer either... so he prints to my machine via
netatalk, my computer takes that, passes it through the CUPS lpr
emulator which then sends it via smbprint to to the Windows machine.
My cute little Linux box now supports lpr, IPP, SMB and Appletalk
printing. :)

The Mac dude is impressed: his Mac thinks its a postscript printer when
it's really just a generic HP deskjet of some sort.  He thinks it looks
better that way than printing it to a locally connected deskjet as he
does at home.

The whole setup in /etc/netatalk/papd.conf:

InkJet:\
        :pr=|/usr/bin/lpr:\
        :op=lp:\
        :pd=/etc/netatalk/APLWNTR1.PPD:

Depending on whether your lpr has magicfilter or something like it to
autodetect postscript (as CUPS does), the above silliness will probably
work fine with any old printer that lpr can print to.  It's probably not
the 'best' way to do it, but it works great for me.

-- 
Brian Moore                       | Of course vi is God's editor.
      Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker     | If He used Emacs, He'd still be waiting
      Usenet Vandal               |  for it to load on the seventh day.
      Netscum, Bane of Elves.