Printing to FreeBSD print server running cups - odd problem
 

Hi all,

I've got a FreeBSD server acting as a print server for my wife and my laptops. We're both using OSX.

I have an odd problem with printing though... If I print something *from* the FreeBSD machine, and then start printing to it from the laptops, everything works fine. Things continue to work until I turn the printer off. When I next turn it on, I have to repeat this process.

If I just turn the printer on and attempt to print from one of the laptops, I just get page after page of what looks like garbage coming out. It's not quite postscript output... Kinda like when you viewed a binary using edit under MSDOS if that makes any sense ?

To send the initial print job, I log onto the FreeBSD server and do
lpr /etc/hosts
I want to be able to cut out this step for two reasons.

1. My wife doesn't really want to jump through this hoop
2. This wastes paper

I'm using FreeBSD 5.2.1 and Cups from ports.

Any ideas how to fix this ? Thanks in advance,

This may be a dumb question, but are you sure that when you type lpr locally it's using the cups lpr and not the default FreeBSD lpr? When you install cups from ports it installs to /usr/local/bin, and there's usually a BSD styled lpr in /usr/bin, and you have to do some system magic to get cups to work properly locally. Also, what kind of printer is it?

Micah

I'm definitely using the cups lpr. On the advice of a howto I read, I moved the system lpr, lpq, etc out of the path after installing cups.

The printer is an Epson Stylus CX3200

Is it a USB or parport printer? If USB are you using /dev/ulpt or /dev/unlpt? Are you using Gimp Print, builtin CUPS or another driver?

What it sounds like is that when you print from FreeBSD it's sending out some initialization codes, which aren't being sent when printing from OSX (hence the gibberish). I haven't setup remote printing on CUPS yet, so I'm just going to offer some generic troubleshooting suggestions. First I'd wonder if maybe OSX is printing to CUPS either using a driver and sending native printer command when it should be sending postscript or it's sending postscript when it should be sending native printer commands. Do you see any log output on your FreeBSD box when printing remotely (check /var/log/cups/)?

Micah

I have the same problem here, but with a win2k machine connected. I'm happy I'm not alone. Did you solve your problem?

I'm afraid not yet :( I've not really had time to look into it though, as I've got end of year assignments due in, and work is quite manic.

I hope to have a look at it this weekend / next week, and I'll then update this thread.

Hi guys,

I have epson stylus cx3200 printer and i am thinking about running a print server using freebsd. Did you guys fix the problem? IF yes, How did you fix it? Thanks alot in advance


Cheers,