CUPS Discussion

[Martin Iturbide]

About CUPS.

My wishlist from my point of view is:
1) That it will not force users to install on the root (and that it will work outside the root directory)
2) That the WarpIn installer get updated / or that an RPM/YUM installer will be created.

Regards

[Doug Bissett]

Gotta say - I'm not sure how to interpret the above..... in particular the section I've highlighted in italics..............................

"Demand" was used, more for emphasis than anything else.     I do notice that you (Paul), sometimes take your time about investigating problems. I also know that that is usually because you are busy working on other, probably more important, projects. It is a fact of life that we all live within a 24 hour day.

Even Doug creates installers, so it cant be that hard for others to help out as well

Actually, building WarpIn installers is pretty easy, in most cases. I have built a few REXX scripts to do it, and they can be included in the final build process when a programmer builds the program (PMMail does that). They are nothing fancy, they just set up the environment, then execute the appropriate commands. The hard part is to make the initial *.WIS file, and add the proper stuff to the build command. After that, it is easy to build the installer by simply running the script, and making appropriate responses. I should clean that up, document it, package it, and make it available. Unfortunately, the 24 hour day is getting in the way of that too.

About CUPS.

My wishlist from my point of view is:
1) That it will not force users to install on the root (and that it will work outside the root directory)
2) That the WarpIn installer get updated / or that an RPM/YUM installer will be created.

1) That probably could be done, but it would increase the amount of work required to build CUPS. We certainly don't want to make more work for those who do work on it.

2) I have started to look at the WarpIn installer for CUPS (done by Alex T., I think), but I have not had the time to do more than look. Of course, I also need to get it working, before I package it. Again, the 24 hour day is getting in the way.

Personally, I have no use for RPM/YUM. I find that it can't even update itself, without causing problems. I also find that installing it after the initial system install, always causes problems. You need to install it when you initially install eCS (or OS/2). After that, if nothing goes wrong, it seems to work okay, but the user needs to figure out how to do it (we are back to major command line stuff, much of which makes no sense to an average user).

[Martin Iturbide]

Personally, I have no use for RPM/YUM.....

On my side I started to like RPM/YUM, it helps a lot of time to install the required libraries for some software. I still dislike that is uses FHS and wants to install on the root (but it works on other directories), plus we are missing a good GUI for it.
But on the other side "yum update" is very simple to update everything from the server. It really saves time.

Regards

[Paul Smedley]

Speaking only for myself, I appreciate all of the software you compile and take the time to listen to feedback on, even if I don't use a lot of it I know it contributes to keeping many people using OS/2.

I certainly would not expect you to do what you do unless you are happy to do it, in your own spare time, as it happens. If others want things to be simpler in installing, I see no reason that they cant spend some time to learn and give back to our community by creating, or helping to create installers and or documentation.

Thanks Martin and Ian, I appreciate the comments.

[Paul Smedley]

Gotta say - I'm not sure how to interpret the above..... in particular the section I've highlighted in italics..............................

I do notice that you (Paul), sometimes take your time about investigating problems.

I shake my head at this comment.....

I started to write more but thought better of it.

[Doug Bissett]

Gotta say - I'm not sure how to interpret the above..... in particular the section I've highlighted in italics..............................

I do notice that you (Paul), sometimes take your time about investigating problems.

I shake my head at this comment.....

I started to write more but thought better of it.

Did you read the rest of the comment? It was a comment on life. I do the same, a lot of the time, as you may have noticed.

Your work is appreciated. I started to write more but thought better of it.

[Fr4nk]

I don't understand Dougs posting as abusive.

Paul, please re-interpret.

Peace, guys.

[Doug Bissett]

2) I have started to look at the WarpIn installer for CUPS (done by Alex T., I think), but I have not had the time to do more than look. Of course, I also need to get it working, before I package it. Again, the 24 hour day is getting in the way.

Thanks to David M. I got CUPS 2.0.0 to print a test page. Some critical information seems to be missing from the packages (or I never found it). It seems that you need to use a command to create a Symlink for Ghostscript (I say what?). I don't know about other users, but I never even heard about needing such a thing. Those who use Linux, or are programmers, may know about the ln command, but I suspect that the average OS/2 user doesn't know about it.

Fortunately, it seems that Alex T. is working on an updated WarpIn installer for CUPS. If he catches all of the changes, and does what is needed, there should be few problems. The biggest exposure is that CUPS is a big program, with different parts for different printers. I doubt that Alex has all of them to test with, so it would be far too easy to make a typo, or miss something, for a printer that he doesn't have. It is important to have many people test the installer (when it is ready).

Now, I am trying to create an OS/2 printer object for the CUPS printer. Something isn't working, yet.

[Alex Taylor]

Well, I tried printing a test page with cups-2.0.0 today.  I get nothing from the printer.  According to the error log, all the filter programs seemed to execute properly, and the data gets sent to the printer... but the printer simply makes a brief noise and does nothing, and the error log (even in debug mode) reports nothing more helpful than the single error: 'filter failed'.

Looking at the temp directory, the banner PDF is created, as is a Postscript file with the same contents, so I assume that gs ran successfully.  (The gs.exe symlink exists and is correct.)

This is a native Postscript printer so pstoraster and additional filters are presumably not used. I tested with both GS 8.71 and GS 9.15, with no change. I also tried using both lpd and ipp backends, again with no difference.

[Doug Bissett]

the error log (even in debug mode) reports nothing more helpful than the single error: 'filter failed'.

I managed to get the printer (HP D110a, WiFi attached) to print the test page, properly, but when I create the OS/2 printer object, and try to use that, it just says 'filter failed'. The printer is not listed in the options, so I selected the printer that has worked in the past. Reading the instructions at the netlabs site, it seems that I need to import my printer PPD, so it will be an option. I never had to do that before, but that may be because I used the wizard. Hmmm, I can't install the wizard because WarpIn doesn't know about the manual CUPS install that I just did. I extracted the files using WPIView, and ran the program. CupsWiz now lists fewer printers, and still does not include the one that I have. I picked one that might work, and continued, After a short period, it did offer my printer, so I chose that, and the printer was "installed" (with the original printer driver that I picked, listed as the driver). Something is still not working.

QPDFView won't start (can't find CUPS, which seems to be exactly where it was before, although I think it wants CUPS.DLL, which no longer exists - it is now CUPS20.DLL). Trying to print using AE.EXE results in a popup about "Access violation exception". If I put the printer object on hold, nothing ever gets there.

Hmmm. it seems that the Scribus package has included CUPS17.DLL, while the CUPS package now has CUPS20.DLL. CUPS.DLL no longer exists, but seems to be required by other programs.

More later...

[guzzi]

Doug, perhaps it's better to create a separate thread for the cups issue?

[Doug Bissett]

Doug, perhaps it's better to create a separate thread for the cups issue?

There is a thread in the Cups development news group (GMANE). I will follow up there, with a quick summary here, when it all works (for those who aren't following the news groups).

This thread should probably be split into more than two parts.

[Paul Smedley]

Thanks to David M. I got CUPS 2.0.0 to print a test page. Some critical information seems to be missing from the packages (or I never found it). It seems that you need to use a command to create a Symlink for Ghostscript (I say what?). I don't know about other users, but I never even heard about needing such a thing. Those who use Linux, or are programmers, may know about the ln command, but I suspect that the average OS/2 user doesn't know about it.

Then perhaps you shouldhave read readme.cups-filters.os2 which was included in the package:
"A symlink also needs to exist to gsos2.exe, located in /cups/bin
ie:
ln -s /gs/gs8.71/bin/gsos2.exe /cups/bin/gs.exe"

[Doug Bissett]

Thanks to David M. I got CUPS 2.0.0 to print a test page. Some critical information seems to be missing from the packages (or I never found it). It seems that you need to use a command to create a Symlink for Ghostscript (I say what?). I don't know about other users, but I never even heard about needing such a thing. Those who use Linux, or are programmers, may know about the ln command, but I suspect that the average OS/2 user doesn't know about it.

Then perhaps you shouldhave read readme.cups-filters.os2 which was included in the package:
"A symlink also needs to exist to gsos2.exe, located in /cups/bin
ie:
ln -s /gs/gs8.71/bin/gsos2.exe /cups/bin/gs.exe"

You know, I did read that, more than once. I even tried it, more than once. All I got was "No such directory". It was only after Dave pointed to it again, that I realized that I had forgotten it, and needed to execute the command while working on the drive where i installed CUPS (NOT the boot drive).

It was late, I wasn't thinking very well, and I forgot all about it the next day. What more can I say, than the 24 hour days are catching up to me.   

I still can't get it to print from OS/2, but that is in the news group.