CUPS, foomatic-rip, 4.8 RELEASE (was: How to get CUPS to work)

[Jesse Guardiani]

Mark Terribile wrote:

> 
> Todd:
> 
>>>... Has anyone gotten CUPS working using the
>>> foomatic-rip/gimp-print method [from]
>>> Linuxprinting.org?  I have an Epson Stylus C82 at
>>> /dev/lpt0.
>>> ...
>> Looks like I got it.  I installed the printer
>> again using a different driver (one that for some
>> reason did not show up the first time I tried)
>> and it works now.
> 
> I went through a hassle on the C82, and I don't know
> that I could reproduce everything I did,


I went through this hassle yesterday. I was up from 11:00PM
to 5:30AM working on it. I thought it might be a good idea to
take notes. Obviously, you've got to download the foomatic-rip
script and the foomatic-gswrapper script from the linuxprinting.org
site and follow the instructions there to install it, but here are
the ADDITIONAL things I had to do to get the cups port/package
working properly under FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE: (This may not all be
necessary under 4.8-RELEASE. YMMV.)

    su
    mv /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh.sample /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh
    /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh start

    mkdir /var/log/cups
    touch /var/log/cups/access_log
    mkdir /usr/local/etc/cups/certs
    mkdir /var/spool/cups
    mkdir /usr/local/etc/cups/ppd
    mkdir /var/spool/cups/tmp

I then configured my printer by following the instructions on
Linuxprinting.org and pointing my browser to:

    http://localhost:631/

Also, if you want to use cups from the command line, via the lp*
commands (this seems to be a requirement for GNOME/gtk* programs,
since GNOME doesn't natively support cups yet), you need to do this:

    su
    mkdir /usr/bin/old-lp-commands
    mv /usr/bin/lp* /usr/bin/old-lp-commands
    ln -s /usr/local/bin/lp* /usr/bin


The most important thing to remember is that any cups/web errors you
receive will be debuggable in two ways:

1.) Check /var/log/cups/error_log
    If this doesn't give you enough information, proceed to
    step #2 below:

2.) In /usr/local/etc/cups/cupsd.conf, uncomment the following:

        LogLevel debug

    And restart the cupsd daemon:

        /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh stop
        /usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh start

    Now, any errors logged to /var/log/cups/error_log will be
    quite verbose. This is useful for debugging errors thrown
    by the foomatic-rip perl script. However, I'd like to note
    that I did NOT have to modify my foomatic-rip script in
    any way.


Conclusion:
===========
The FreeBSD cups package/port doesn't create the necessary
directory structure needed to configure and run cupsd properly.

I can overlook the fact that the cups port doesn't presume to
automatically replace the /usr/bin/lp* commands, but failing to
create the necessary directory structure is inexcusable. Someone
should fix that.

I hope the above information is useful to someone. It MAY NOT
be 100% complete. I was very tired when I took the above notes.
Please write me and let me know if you had to add anything or
do anything different from the above. But Note: I do NOT want
to know what you had to do to install foomatic-rip, hpijs, or
any other printer-specific software properly. I'm only interested
in cups configuration and setup info.

My email address is jesse at wingnet.net.

Have a great day!


-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
WingNET Internet Services,
P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605
423-559-LINK (v)  423-559-5145 (f)
http://www.wingnet.net