[kde-linux] Strange network printing problem

[Thomas Taylor]

On Wednesday 11 January 2006 04:37, Anne Wilson wrote:
> A laptop with kde 3.3/Debian Sarge installed was printing merrily across
> the lan.  Suddenly it was no longer possible to see the printer in
> kwrite, or any other kde app.  I can print from the command line with
> lpr, and lpq returns the correct printer name and a ready status.
>
> /etc/printcap was pointing to a non-existant dot-matrix printer.  I
> checked the same file on this box which uses the same printer and found
> nothing but the comment lines.  Commenting out the lp lines on the
> laptop resulted in an empty drop-down list (apart from virtual
> printers) in kwrite.  I'm not sure how to complete the stanza that is
> there for lpr -
>
> # rlp|Remote printer entry:\
>
>          :lp=:\
>          :rm=remotehost:\anne-linux.lydgate.net
>          :rp=remoteprinter:\Printer
>          :sd=/var/spool/lpd/remote:\
>          :mx#0:\
>          :sh:
>
> Can someone tell me what the missing entries are?
>
> Any advice anyone can give that enables me to print again would be
> invaluable.
>
> Anne

Hi Anne:

Don't know about advice yet.  First some questions.

Did you do some kind of upgrade/update prior to the problem?  What kernel are 
you using?  

I have kde 3.5 under FC4 which MAY work differently.  I use 
system-config-printer from cli to set up printers which puts printer info 
into /etc/cups/printers.conf.  /etc/printcap should get it's info from there 
via the cupsd(8).  I'm running two printers, a laser on the network, and an 
inkjet from the parallel port.  

contents of /etc/cups/printers.conf:
# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.23
# Written by cupsd on Sun 04 Sep 2005 03:04:57 PM PDT
<DefaultPrinter laser>
DeviceURI lpd://192.168.0.70/PS-Port_1
Location 
Info 
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>
<Printer inkjet>
DeviceURI parallel:/dev/lp0
Location 
Info 
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>


contents of /etc/printcap:
# This file was automatically generated by cupsd(8) from the
# /etc/cups/printers.conf file.  All changes to this file
# will be lost.
laser|:rm=home:rp=laser:
inkjet|inkjet:rm=home:rp=inkjet:

HTH,
Tom

-- 
Tom Taylor
Linux user #263467
Federal Way, WA