more on FreeBSD and Brother HL-5250-DN

[David Kelly]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 10:31:27AM -0700, Gary Kline wrote:
> 
> 	Very late last night it occurred to me that the reason no
> 	/dev/lpt0 was that my parallel cable isn't plugged into my new
> 	printer.  The test pages work via the cat5 <-> switch; this
> 	HTML helped me configure the 5250.  When I another geek over 
> 	here to plug things together, I'll be able to test the
> 	/etc/printcap.   Here it is, as auto-installed by dpkg -i::
> 
> HL5250DN:\
>         :mx=0:\
>         :sd=/var/spool/lpd/HL5250DN:\
>         :sh:\
>         :lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\
>         :if=/usr/local/Brother/lpd/filterHL5250DN:

I forgot, is there a reason you are not using apsfilter out of ports?
Stick with apsfilter and its lengthy guided text-based config and you
will have a working printer in short order.

Have almost never used my 5250 from FreeBSD so its not currently
configured and I'm no where near it at the moment. But after fussing
with other "solutions" including CUPS, I keep coming back to good old
simple apsfilter.

To print via network lpd style change your lp line to :lp=:\

Specify the remote system by IP address or name something like this:
	:rm=kyocera.local:\

And specify the printer queue on rm that one is to print:
	:rp=lp:\

You can list the printer name in /etc/hosts if its difficult to add to
DNS proper. Or just put the numbers in rm= above. I have a caching bind
running above where I've added a .local domain for internal machines.

The main thing I use the Kyocera printer (above) is to print man pages.
"man -t man | lp". Very pretty and impressive man pages.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
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Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.