Subject: [netatalk-admins] Talking to HP Deckjet printer

From: [email-masked] (Frank Crawford)
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 00:47:00 +1100

I'm running Netatalk 1.4b2 on Linux 2.0.33 (bits) talking to a PowerMac
(jc) running MacOS 8, printing from the Mac to Linux and file sharing
works okay, but I can't seem to print from the Linux box to the printer
connected to the Mac.  The printer is a HP DeskJet 850C, connected to
the printer/appletalk port and running the latest HP Deskjet 8000
Printer Driver.  It works fine from the Mac.

It appears that the HP driver doesn't support PAP or any other network
accesses on the Mac.

So does anyone have any suggestions of how to access this printer?  The
choices I see are to:
	a) Allow connections to a HP printer,
	b) To enable the option to allow PAP to connect
	   (but how do you do this?), or
	c) Put something else in place (I've tried lpdaemon3.4, but it also
	   can't seem to find the printer, although I may have the SERIAL
	   options wrong for the printer port).

								Frank

-- 
Frank Crawford		Email:	[email-masked]	Postal:	PMB 1
Site Systems Manager	Phone:	+61 2 9717 3015			Menai NSW 2234
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---

From: Bill Studenmund <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 10:47:10 -0800 (PST)

> It appears that the HP driver doesn't support PAP or any other network

DeskWriters connect either directly, as you seem to be doing, or via
LocalTalk. If you are using a serial cable to the mac, then the printer is
in direct-connect mode. It won't support PAP in this case.

So your choices are either to run LocalTalk, or to run a program on the
mac to make the printer visable on the net. You mentioned lpdaemon (sp?).
Try playing with it. Though be careful if the program talks directly to
the printer, as it's not a postscript printer. You'll need to run
Ghostscript somewhere if you want to print Postscript to it.

Take care,

Bill

---

From: Palle Girgensohn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 03:29:56 +0100

Hi,

It should be possible to connect the printer to linux via the parallell
port and let netatalk hand it out on AppleTalk. One can either share it
as a postscript printer (LaserWriter) and use ghostscript to generate HP
PCL, or (this is what I want, but never had time to set up) you should
be able to share it as a HP DeskJet 850C by setting the right "type" in
AppleTalk. See this example:

> npblkup
...
                        Not:SNMP Agent                        
65281.129:8
                        Not:LaserWriter                       
65281.129:158
                        Not:LaserJet 4                        
65281.129:158
...

My printer (a HP LaserJet 4, w/ ethernet and postscript built-in) is
called Not. It presents itself as a LaserWriter, and as a LaserJet 4.
The mac knows this printer is a Postscript printer and talks postscript
with it.

Now, the mac chooser drivers for the deskjet has a serial version and an
AppleTalk version. This doesn't have to be LocalTalk, just as long as
the protocol is AppleTalk. The Chooser driver doesn't care about the
cable type. Ethernet is fine. So, it should somehow be possible to
"cheat" the mac that your deskjet is on your AppleTalk network. My guess
is that it's enough to set the correct name, but I haven't tried it. If
you are willing to inestigate it further, try checking how the printer
presents itself in AppleTalk, for example by using a "mac version" oc
nbplkup, LanSatellite (available from info-mac i.e.
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/mac/info-mac/

Also, I'm pretty sure some of out there in this list have this setup
running? Please let us know.

Regards,
palle

---

From: Bill Studenmund <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 20:17:33 -0800 (PST)

> Hi,

Hello,

>  you should
> AppleTalk.

[snip how LaserJets show up as LaserWriters]

> presents itself in AppleTalk.

In my experiments, I found it definitly shows up as a DeskWriter. I think
it even was a DeskWriter870, but that detail's at work.

I seem to recal, though, that someone tried, and it didn't work. The papd
server gets recognized by the Mac driver, but it doesn't talk back right.
Or that's what I recall. Given how the printers report status when hooked
up serially (a heartbeat character every 2 seconds), I wouldn't doubt that
HP has its own way for the printer to report status. papd would need to
imitate this for printing to work.

> running? Please let us know.

Yes. I'd love to be provem wrong on this count!

Take care,

Bill

---

From: [email-masked] (Frank Crawford)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 11:25:21 +1100

...

I've previously done this, i.e. running it as a LaserWriter connected to
a Linux box and using ghostscript, and it works well.  Unfortunately, my
children (who generate most of the colour printouts) want it closer to
their Mac, which is located in a different room.  So it needs to be
either physically connected to the PowerMac or on some sort of print server
in their room (but I'm trying to avoid buying one at present).

>From some other comments, I guess I need to use lpdaemon, which I have,
but I don't know the correct settings for a printer connected to the
printer port.  I know this is a little outside scope of this list, but
can anyone suggest the right settings?  The sample config file says (for a
serial printer):

PRINTER <name1> SERIAL <name2> [baud stop parity bits]

<name1> is the spool queue, but <name2> is the name of the serial driver,
which I don't know, and the "[baud ...]" I wouldn't have thought I needed
for the printer port.  After all, isn't it a parallel port of some sort.
(I come from a Unix and PC background, so I don't know much about the low
level stuff of the Mac, it works so I don't normally play with it. :-))

Thanks for all the help so far.

								Frank