TITLE: Printing on LFS
LFS VERSION: any
AUTHOR: Wolfgang Arendt <wolare@gmx.de>

SYNOPSIS:
This hint describes, how to set up basic printing. We are
assuming local networking is enabled, sections 9.1 through 9.6
of the book.

HINT:

Table of contents

* Introduction
* About this hint
* Packages
* Prerequisites
* Hardware
* Kernel
* Users and groups:
* apsfilter
* Building gdbm
* Building LPRng
* Building Ghostscript
* Building psutils
* Installing a2ps
* Building apsfilter
* Sources and disclaimer
* Contributions
* Further information

Introduction

We will build LPRng with gdbm support. It will run as user lp, member
of the daemon group. In this example, the GID of the group daemon is 5
and so is the UID of the user lp. Please modify all commands to fit
your environment. All components will install their configuration into
the /etc directory. Moreover we will install Ghostscript as printer
driver, assisted by a2ps, the "any to Postscript" converter, apsfilter
and psutils.

About this hint

This hint is a merge of the following documents:

printing.txt
by Fabio Fracassi <f.fracassi@gmx.net>

print.txt
by ktb <x.y.f@home.com>

ghostscript.txt
by Wolfgang Arendt <wolare@gmx.de>

printing2.txt
by Wolfgang Arendt <wolare@gmx.de>

Packages

The basic printing system consists of the following packages:

gdbm-1.8.0.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdbm/

LPRng-3.8.4.tgz
ftp://ftp.lprng.com/pub/LPRng/LPRng/

psutils-p17.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/ajcd/

a2ps-4.13:a2ps-4.13
ftp://ftp.enst.fr/pub/unix/a2ps/

apsfilter-7.1.1.tar.gz
http://www.apsfilter.org/download/

ghostscript-7.00.tar.gz
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/

Standard fonts for ghostscript
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/fonts/ghostscript-fonts-std-6.0.tar.gz

Optional fonts for ghostscript
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/fonts/ghostscript-fonts-other-6.0.tar.gz

Prerequisites

Hardware

You need a supported printer. Check:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi

for a list of supported hardware.

Kernel

You need a kernel with support for the interface, your printer is
connected to and printing support in general.

To check, whether this is the case, try the following:

For a local printer on the first parallel port try:
echo "bla\\f" > /dev/lp0

The printer should react in any way (to be more precisely: it should
print one page with the word "bla" on it).

For a networked printer try pinging the IP number of the printer.

If one of those worked, you are ready to install the software.

If the printer did not respond make sure it is connected to the
computer correctly i.e., check cables, make sure the network is
working correctly and that there is kernel support for the printer.

You can check, whether your kernel supports the parallel port, by
running

cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep CONFIG_PARPORT

You can check, whether you have printing support in the kernel, by
running:

cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep CONFIG_PRINTER

Users and groups:

The printer daemon should not run as user root for security reasons.
Check, whether you have a user named "lp", that is member of the group
"daemon". If you do not, create such user, by running

groupadd -g 5 daemon

useradd -u 5 -d /var/spool/lp -s /bin/sh -g daemon lp

apsfilter

In order to build apsfilter, it is necessary, that you have an
executable file named "sendmail" in your path. This does not need to
be a real mail transfer agent, since apsfilter does not really use it,
except for acquiring the apsfilter's author's mail address.

You might get along, by creating a faked sendmail, like

touch /usr/bin/sendmail &&
chmod 750 /usr/bin/sendmail

but consider installing a real MTA. If you want an easy solution for a
dial-up system, consider Masqmail, which is quite easy to set up. Find
Masqmail here: http://www.innominate.org/~oku/masqmail/

(please consider, sending the apsfilter's author an email
nevertheless).

Building gdbm

The gdbm database library helps speed up large print jobs.

LPRng does not compile unless you have "gdbm" installed. You may
choose, not to install it, and to skip this section. In that case, you
will have to use "--disable-gdbm" as a "configure" option, when
compiling LPRng.

For more information see:
* http://www.astart.com/lprng/LPRng-HOWTO.html
* http://www.gnu.org/software/gdbm/gdbm.html

The configure script does not seem to recognize the "--prefix=..."
option correctly, so we will manually make an adjustment to the
Makefile.

Enter:

./configure &&
ed Makefile <<EOF
/^prefix/s#/local##
.
w
EOF
make &&
make install

Building LPRng

LPRng seems to behave in an unpredictable way, if you use optimization
higher than O2. You may try to compile it with your usual compiler
flags. But if this fails, try "-O2"

Build LPRng with the following commands:

./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--with-userid=lp \
--with-groupid=daemon &&
make &&
make install

Instead of using the start stop script, that comes with LPRng, create
such a file from the /etc/init.d/template file.

Building Ghostscript

Extract the package and change to the top-level-directory of the
distribution. If you use version 5.10 you will find all the source
files in that directory. Users of version 6.5 and higher will find
subdirectories there, containing the sources, libraries etc.

If you can not find a file named unix-gcc.mak in your present
directory (which should be gs<VERSION>), then copy it there from the
src subdirectory.

Stay in the same directory and extract the zlib-package. This creates
a directory named zlib-1.1.3. Rename this directory to zlib (or make a
symlink).

Extract jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz and rename the jpeg-6b directory to jpeg
(or make a symlink).

Extract libpng-1.2.1.tar.gz and move the libpng-1.2.1-directory to
libpng (or - guess, what - make a symlink).

Now create the Makefile, by running the following command:

sed -n -f changes.sed unix-gcc.mak

Now, you should be ready to compile the whole thing. Just run:

make &&
make install

If the compilation fails with error messages, containing something
about zdevcal.c, then append the line

#include <time.h>

to the file src/time_.h and try again. (This might have to do with
glibc-2.2.... but I am not sure about it).

Finally extract the fonts to the /usr/share/ghostscript directory. The
directory structure should look somewhat like this:

/usr/share/ghostscript
/usr/share/ghostscript/gs7.00
/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts

Notes:

If you have zlib and libpng installed, you might choose, to use shared
versions of the libpng and zlib libraries. In that case, please edit
the Makefile, before running "make":

Change SHARE_LIBPNG=0 to SHARE_LIBPNG=1.

Change SHARE_ZLIB=0 to SHARE_ZLIB=1.

Make sure you have the paths to your X libs and X*.h files accessible
to the build process. With a default X install they should be in
/usr/X11R6/lib and /usr/X11R6/include/X11.

Make sure, that the following two lines to are in your
/etc/ld.so.conf:

/usr/X11R6/lib
/usr/X11R6/include/X11

and run

ldconfig

It is possible, to build ghostscript, without having X installed. In
that case, edit the Makefile and comment out all the lines, that refer
to X.

Building psutils

Installing psutils is optional. If you do not install the package, you
will get a warning, when you install a2ps. For more information see:
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/ajcd/psutils/

The following command will install psutils. It is configured for paper
size a4. If you need another media type, then you need to change the
line beginning with PAPER= in the Makefile.

cp Makefile.unix Makefile &&
ed Makefile <<EOF
/^BINDIR/s#/local##
/^INCLUDEDIR/s#/local##
/^PERL/s#/local##
/^MANDIR/s#/local##
.
w
EOF
make &&
make install

Installing a2ps

a2ps is the "Any (graphics format) to Postscript" converter.

Compile a2ps by entering:

./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--enable-shared &&
make &&
make install

Building apsfilter

Apsfilter a filter that runs ghostscript and creates /etc/printcap.

Compile apsfilter by entering

./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc &&
make &&
make install

The last thing, that you have to do is, to configure apsfilter using
/usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP

You will be asked a series of questions about printer type, which
driver to install, paper size, network connection etc.

Sources and disclaimer

We certainly do not consider ourselves experts at print installations.
This document should give you a good start though. We welcome any
comments.

Contributions

02 May 2002. Yoon Soo <yoonsoo@web.de> added:

I have an addition which may be interesting for your lfs-hint about
printing.

It deals with ghostscript-6.51 :

If you already have installed zlib and libpng (as described in the
blfs book) you can skip the copy of these sources into the ghostscript
tree (for jpeg it is strongly recommended to have this statically
linked).

cp Makefile Makefile.bak
sed "60 s/\/usr\/local/\/usr/" Makefile.bak |
sed "65 s/\/man/\/share\/man/" |
sed "s/SHARE_LIBPNG=0/SHARE_LIBPNG=1/" |
sed "s/SHARE_ZLIB=0/SHARE_ZLIB=1/" |
sed "263 s/-I/-I\/usr/" > Makefile
make
make install

Further information:

* http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO/index.html
* http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi