HELP WANTED: kdeprint with GNUlpr

[James Richard Tyrer]

Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> 
>> General additional comments.
>>
>> The LPR and LPRng is supposed to be in the same module.  So, this 
>> isn't an GNUlpr only effort.  But, I was going to see if I could get 
>> GNUlpr working first.  I will reconsider this.
>>
>> I originally rejected LPRng because it appeared to be a RedHat project 
>> and I couldn't get it to work with my system.  However, now RedHat has 
>> dropped it -- and I assumed that it too would be dead.  But, I will 
>> look at it.
>>
>> I have problems with CUPS: It is semi-proprietary 
> 
> 
> Wrong. What makes you think this?
> 
The fact that they originally intended that you would have to purchase print drivers to 
use it.

> Last I checked, CUPS was under the GPL and LGPL.
> 
> Are you confused because to the dual licensing thing, that makes
> it sell (with a few proprietary add-ons) as "ESP Print Pro" 

Yes ESP Print Pro includes the printer drivers.

> and
> that gives Apple a license exemption from the GPL to use it in
> their OS X?
> 
> This doesn't change a iota for me and you: CUPS is under the GPL?
> 
>> and it won't print PostScript data that doesn't have the fonts embedded. 
> 
> 
> Wrong too.
> 
> CUPS doesn't need PostScript fonts embedded in the printfiles. (What it
> *does* need is to have the fonts installed which may be referenced inside
> the PostScript file, or have an appropriate replacement font available.

You have used the term "installed" here.  What you said depends on your definition of 
'installed'.

> But this is what all spoolers need, which do PostScript processing and
> not just "raw" spooling....

No, for the LPR family, they don't care about the fonts, the fonts are a GhostScript issue 
and if you have the fonts correctly set up for Ghostscript, they will print.  A single 
exception that Greg Drummond (the KFontInst guy) found was that fonts installed in $HOME 
subdirectories would not print unless embedded.  This is the small bug that the 'gsk' 
patch fixes; a problem that I think is probably caused by a bug in Bash.

But, I have found NO way for this to work with CUPS unless you build CUPS &/| GhostScript 
from source.  Well my kludge does work:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tyrerj/files/gs-fix/pstoraster

But, I don't consider it to be a satisfactory solution.  I haven't tried Craig's solution 
with FooMatic.

>> This was simple to fix in GNUlpr -- a few lines added to a script.  
>> Although Craig Drummond says that he has fixed this with CUPS if you 
>> use FooMatic.  We are free to fork LPR but we can't really change CUPS.
>>
> 
> Why should you want to change/fork CUPS?

To enable it to find fonts.
> 
> What would you want to change in CUPS? Have you sent in patches
> which were rejected?
> 
NO, only a bug report which was rejected.

>> GNUlpr does have support for PPD files and this could be integrated 
>> into KDE. 
> 
> GNUlpr has lifted that code from early versions of CUPS. And has
> missed a few years of development since then.
> 
>> I don't use FooMatic because it isn't necessary unless you use CUPS 
>> (where it is used to replace the proprietary printer drivers).  If 
>> there is something that FooMatic can provide to LPR based print 
>> systems, someone please educate me.
>>
> 
> Foomatic enables *all* spoolers with fully-fledged PPD-support....
> 
If you use FooMatic with LPRng, how do you select the printer resolution?

--
JRT