AsanteTalk Bridge

[Alexander Holst]

Hi Paul,

Am 12.05.2004 um 16:21 schrieb 
yellowdog-general-request@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com:

> Message: 1
> From: paulguba@comcast.net
> To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
> Subject: AsanteTalk Bridge
> Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 18:03:08 +0000
> Reply-To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>
> I use and AsanteTalk Bridge to print to HP 6MP printer works perfectly 
> on Mac OSX.  Anyone know how to get this to work under YDL.  Done a 
> lot of searching but most post I've found are really not very 
> complete.  A step by step is what I'm looking for.  Netatalk is 
> working I can see the printer and the bridge on the network beyond 
> that I'm lost.  Using YDL 3.01.

Check out the web for a CUPS backend that supports AppleTalk (e.g. try 
google). Install it as a usual backend for CUPS (e.g. put it in 
/usr/lib/cups/backend and name it pap), make it executable so it looks 
like:
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7.6K Sep  2  2003 
/usr/lib/cups/backend/pap

In case you use the backend from Thomas Kaiser (which I can recomend):
<http://users.phg-online.de/tk/CUPS/backend/pap>, it will even show all 
the available AppleTalk printers inside the pulldown menue in the CUPS 
web interface, when creating a new printer. The only prerequisit for 
this to happen is that netatalk has to be up and running _before_ cups 
gets started.

That usually doesn't happen that way in YDL. So in order to be able to 
choose your printers from the pulldown menue, simply restart cups after 
netatalk has successfully launched (e.g. "sudo service cups restart, or 
as root run "/etc/rc.d/init.d/cups restart"). For normal operation this 
doesn't matter - once a printer has been correctly definded in cups, it 
won't matter that the AppleTalk printers will not appear in the 
pulldown menue of cups anymore - printjobs will still get to them ;)

Please don't forget to correctly install the appropriate PPDs for your 
AppleTalk printers in CUPS, so you will be able to take advantage of 
all features of that printer. Read the documentation for CUPS about 
that, it is available through the webinterface as well 
(http://localhost:631).

In case you use Thomas' pap backend, read it's contents (it is 
basically a shell script, so it can be viewed with any text editor), it 
has a lot of info about usage and URIs inside.

One caveat: don't use the printer setup from the GNOME panel, it won't 
let you choose the newly installed pap backend, it only has a fixed set 
of backends that don't include it. Use the "native" CUPS web interface 
(e.g. open a browser and navigate to <http://localhost:631> - in the 
default CUPS configuration, only root can create, alter or delete 
printers, so have your root passwd ready ;)

It is also possible to use the classic LPRng spooling system to print 
to AppleTalk printers. Read the man sections for pap, psf (especially) 
and lpr. That should give you an idea on how to setup your 
/etc/printcap for an AppleTalk printer.

Personally, I'd recommend the CUPS way of doing things. We have been 
successfully using Thomas Kaiser's pap backend for over a year now on 
an Apple ANS running YDL. We use this machine as a printspooler and 
AppleTalk & TCP/IP router and it serves it's purpose very well. Very 
rarely, spooled jobs to AppleTalk printers hang, none have gotten lost 
so far. Cancelling them through CUPS' web interface takes care of that 
and only sometimes printers have to be restarted.

Hope that helped.

Greetings,
Alex


Alexander Holst
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
<holst [at] fh-pforzheim [dot] de>
ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040