open ("/dev/lpt0" ...) hangup solved

[george+freebsd at m5p.com]

As was suggested, the problem is that when the system automatically
brings up the plip0 interface, it grabs the ppbus and doesn't let it
go until someone takes the interface down.  I now believe this problem
was present even in 5.3, but I didn't see it because I routinely
compiled custom 5.x kernels, always without plip.

So the real simple fix is to prevent the plip0 interface from coming
up.  I thought the simple fix for this was to put:

ifconfig_plip0="noauto"

into my rc.conf.  But it still came up anyway.  So I put:

network_interfaces="sis0 re0 lo0"

in rc.conf, explicitly excluding plip0.  But plip0 still came up!
What am I doing wrong now?

(When I manually "ifconfig plip0 down", the whole printing problem
is solved.)

Whatever the correct way for keeping plip0 off the list of interfaces
automagically brought up is, I suggest it should go into
/etc/defaults/rc.conf to keep future losers like me from running into
this problem.                         -- George Mitchell