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CUPS???

Started by Dennis, 2007.10.14, 17:21:10

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Dennis

Not being a hi tech person and not monitoring OS/2-eCS developments, I see something called CUPS is replacing win32 development. Please explain what CUPS is.

Thank you

Dennis
Dennis

DavidG

CUPS is the Common Unix Printing System.  A decision was made that this would be the best and easiest way to further develop printer support for eCS.

Here is the Trac page.

http://svn.netlabs.org/ecups/wiki/CupsPort

You can print using the command line tools, or try the CUPS port driver.

ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/ecups/

There is a newsgroup

news://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.ecups/devel

RobertM

Hi Dennis,

Check out these links for more info:

On NetLabs

on eComStation Site


IF I am correct, it will allow a far wider list of printers to be successfully used under eCS and OS/2... but is still under testing and development. (anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, or expound in my answer)

-Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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Paul Smedley

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.10.14, 21:51:09
Hi Dennis,

Check out these links for more info:

On NetLabs

on eComStation Site


IF I am correct, it will allow a far wider list of printers to be successfully used under eCS and OS/2... but is still under testing and development. (anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, or expound in my answer)

You are correct.  There is a list of printers that Gutenprint supports at http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

There has been suprisingly little feedback on the current build - makes me think people aren't interested in support for modern printers...

The current build mostly works for single page documents, multiple page documents tend to fail after the first page - I've isolated this to a problem in the Ghostscript build used - but need to find our where the fault is and correct it still.

We also need to work on making it easier to integrate cups with eComStation - an ongoing challenge.

Cheers,

Paul.

Saijin_Naib

I think the lack of feedback may be because it seems a bit daunting. I, personally, am not comfortable with the OS/2 printer install routine, and from what I was reading about CUPS, doubted my ability to configure it properly, so I never even bothered to try it. Im sure others in the community are not as OS/2 noobish as I am, but it seems daunting and that may have somethig to do with the lack of feedback?

RobertM

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately I'd agree with Saijin_Naib. I think at least a few users are scared away by the *seeming* complexity of installing the drivers.

I'll try to give it a go in the near future and report back anything strange I find. Just havent had time to work on installing it.

-Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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Saijin_Naib

 :-\ Yeah, I am a GUI noob, and the lack of an installer and GUI application through which to manage and set up things really puts me off it. I desperately need printing support under OS/2 for my HP PSC 1210xi, and it looks like eCUPS is going to provide that, but I was afraid to try it. I may sit down this weekend and give it another shot. I can always re-install if I do something dumb :D

Pete

Hi Guys

Just chiming in to say that despite the complex look of cups it is not difficult to install:

Just unzip to the Root of a drive and make sure that all required dll files, libcups and libc063, go into a sensible place: either [BootDrive]:\ecs\dll or [BootDrive]:\os2\dll (whichever is 1st in your Libpath) - also while playing with libc*.dll files it might be worth checking how many of what you have on your system and removing any unrequired extras which can cause problems.

Creating a CUPS printer and testing it is not too difficult to do if you follow the instructions in the \cups\readme.os2 file.

Where it does become a pain is when you have completed the above steps and want to create an eCS(OS/2) Postscript Printer Object for your non-postscript printer to hook up with CUPS allowing you to print from applications...

Before going any further you will need some more files:

ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/ecups/ecups.pdr

gccpin.zip - Somewhere, but I cannot find a url currently, is an updated pin.exe package, gccpin.zip, built by Paul which you should use in preference to the pin.exe supplied with pscript.drv - hopefully Paul will spot this post and respond with the current url.

(not so) Very briefly:

1] The CUPS PPD file for the printer is in .ppd.gz format - located in \cups\share\cups\model\gutenprint\5.1\en_GB This needs to be UNTGZ'd to just a ppd file. I found this easiest to do by copying the required ppd file to the same directory as the UNTGZ files. I'm using a Canon PIXMA iP4000 in this example UNTGZ line - and also take the chance to shorten the decompressed filename somewhat:-

untgzos2 -d stp-bjc-iP4000.5.1.ppd.gz ip4000.ppd ip4000.ppd

I found UNTGZ on hobbes http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/archiver/untgz095.zip

2] You need a "Virgin" (never even been looked at) PSCRIPT package unzipped into a clean directory - I've had problems adding ppd files to pscript.drv 30_827 but 30_822 seems to work OK. Copy the decompressed (ip4000.ppd) ppd file to this directory from wherever you UNTGZ'd it.

3] When found and downloaded unzip gccpin.zip into the same directory as the  PSCRIPT package overwriting the original files.

4] Use pin.exe to add the UNTGZ'd ppd file to the PSCRIPT driver; an example where all files required are in H:\temp\printer:-

[H:\temp\printer]pin.exe ppd H:\temp\printer\ip4000.ppd H:\temp\printer\pscript.drv

The screen will flash lots of messages that you will not be able to read but the final message should say something like this:-

...... OK (Canon iP4000)
done: 1 devices converted, 0 failed
FINISHED, SHUTTING DOWN
done


The above suggests that the ppd file was succesfully added to pscript.drv.

To check doubleclick the pscript.drv and see if the printer you added is listed.

If "Yes" then you can RMB that printer and should get the option Install...

Selecting that should copy all files to \os2\dll\pscript - standard location for this driver in OS/2 systems.

You should then be able to install the printer but remember to set the install routine to look in \os2\dll\pscript rather than A:

When you have the printer installed you need to open the Properties and set eCUPS as the Output port - you will have to do the Install new port bit first. The eCUPS port will require some settings:-

Host - localhost
Printer - name of CUPS printer setup and tested earlier

It is also a good time to set various defaults to the same as those used by the CUPS printer to avoid any strange output problems.


Close Properties. It may be wise to have a reboot here - although it may not be necessary.


The eCS(OS2) printer - in my case the Canon PIXMA iP4000 - should now be capable of producing output at the printer. I suggest trying from a text editor: open a text file and select to print, make sure that the correct printer is selected.

If that works try a few apps - some print with the limitations mentioned by Paul and some do not print at all here.

Hopefully Paul will get the multiple pages problem resolved in the near future.


Another problem that I became aware of recently is that cupsd.exe can exit with no warning when using the browser admin interface. As I had not had this problem at all prior to upgrading my system from single core to dual core cpu I think that there is an interaction problem somewhere within all the software involved. When I turn off cpu2 using the cpu monitor in Utils the problem does not exist. Just something to be aware of....



Why bother with this testing? - it is just a lot of work.

My answer is fairly simple: It removes a lot of the "What driver has a vague chance of working with my brand new printer that is at least several generations removed from the most recent listed printers?" when looking at possible printer purchases.


Hope the above is of help should you decide to test CUPS.

Pete








Paul Smedley

Hi Pete,
Quote from: Pete on 2007.10.18, 23:56:01
Hopefully Paul will get the multiple pages problem resolved in the near future.

I'm at least a little closer to understanding the problem.  It's definitely a ghostscript problem - as running pstoraster from the command line, ghostscript gives an error after one page.

I'm currently trying to get Ghostscript 8.60 building with libc, as the cups stuff is now merged into the main ghostscript tree.

However, my free time amount has decreased significantly of late - roll on Christmas vacation :)

Cheers,

Paul

kdxensen

Hi all,
I've used os/2 since v2.0 and am a loyal fan... I'm delighted to watch the cups project but so far I have not been able to connect to my printers. I am able to use cups for my hp color laserjet 2600n under linuz. There is a ppd for this printer. I'm wondering if I can use this ppd under cups/eCS.

I have followed the readme.os2 and much is still hazy to me but I enjoy tinkering... I'm just not very smart.

The examples in the readme are for 2 printers of which I have neither. I'd hoped to use the examples as "models" for my own printers to no avail...yet.  Am I correct in assuming that I can use this syntax for my printers? Both of my printers are connected thru the lan... the 2600n has a lan interface built in. The other printer is an hp Photosmart 8250 connected to a Trendnet print server.

-Ken

magog

I tried CUPS last week but the Daemon died when I was jumping through the configuration steps using the webbrowser (read something on the website but I thought the problem was fixed with the current release...whatever).
I've not tried it again because I was testing Pauls PostgreSQL build. ;)

I also don't think the printer I've got here will work. It's a Canon IP 4300 which I only got to print some nice pictures and text on my CD/DVDs.
For the other stuff I've got my OKI C5450DN Color Laser printer (PS3/PCL6) which is working with IBMs Postscript drivers after I generated the driver using the PPD file from OKI.
Regards,
Juergen
*** Java Movie Database - http://www.jmdb.de/

Pete

Hi Juergen

Are you running dual core cpu?

As mentioned in my previous post cupsd.exe crashes when accessing the browser admin interface if both cpu cores are On.

Use the CPU Monitor (in Desktop -> Utils) to turn Off CPU2 while using the browser admin; turn On after.


If we are talking single core CPU Please let Paul know - there is a discussion group where you can post bugs/problems  news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.ecups.devel


As CUPS contains the file stp-bjc-PIXMA-iP4300.5.1.ppd.gz my guess is that your Canon PIXMA iP4300 has a very good chance of working with CUPS - within the limitations of the current port; see Paul's post.

Just to try to be encouraging my Canon PIXMA iP4000 works with CUPS - sort of.

Remember this is software in development and the more people testing and posting reports the quicker the software reaches real usability - hopefully.

Regards

Pete








magog

#12
Quote from: Pete on 2007.10.24, 16:29:39
Hi Juergen

Are you running dual core cpu?

As mentioned in my previous post cupsd.exe crashes when accessing the browser admin interface if both cpu cores are On.

Use the CPU Monitor (in Desktop -> Utils) to turn Off CPU2 while using the browser admin; turn On after.

Ok, thank you. Yes it's a Dual Core (Athlon64 X2 3800+ EE) so this hint may help.
Another option that should help is marking cupsd.exe as Single Processor app using EXECMODE:
EXECMODE -sp cupsd.exe

[UPDATE]
I did try EXECMODE but it's still crashing when I want to continue after I entered the URI of the printer queue.

If it's crashing on SMP systems there seems to be some kind of race condition.
Regards,
Juergen
*** Java Movie Database - http://www.jmdb.de/

Paul Smedley

Hi Guys,

Quote from: Pete on 2007.10.24, 16:29:39
Are you running dual core cpu?

Note that I don't really understand why this is an issue - almost all of my testing is done on an Athlon X2 6000+ with both cores enabled with ACPI.

Cheers,

Paul.

RobertM

Hey Paul,

I dont know if this is related, but I have a copy of ffMPEG which, only on certain files, crashes... but only on my Athlon 1100 system. On my Xeon based system (which is 4 CPU) it finishes with no crash. Is either issue possibly due to some incompatible optimization in the app or libraries?


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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