[9fans] printer setup & printing?

[Axel Belinfante <Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl>]

Some (FA?)Q's about printer setup.
I set up access to our network postscript printers as follows:

lw17   location host lw17   - post+600dpi        generic lpdspool lpd -	- FIFO
lw17_d location	host lw17_d - post+600dpi+duplex generic lpdspool lpd - - FIFO

and using that raises some questions (pointers welcome in case the Q are FA)

 - what spool files do I need with what permissions?
   using lp's error messages as directives I now have an 'other'
   file system on the fs, with the following contents:
    lp/
     tmp/
     log/

   with tmp and log permissions:

   d-rwxrwxrwx M 374 axel sys  0 ..........    tmp
   d-rwxrwxr-x M 374 axel sys  0 ..........    log

   Should log directory also be writable for all?

   with in log the files that lp made, with following permissions:

   a-rw-rw-rw- M 374 axel sys   0 Apr  8 19:51 log/lw17
   --rw-rw-rw- M 374 axel sys 201 Apr 12 13:40 log/lw17.st
   a-rw-rw-rw- M 374 axel sys   0 Apr  8 18:54 log/lw17_d
   --rw-rw-rw- M 374 axel sys 201 Apr 12 15:32 log/lw17_d.st
   a-rw-rw-rw- M 374 axel sys   0 Apr 12 13:06 log/stdout

   I noticed that the *.st files need to be writable by all,
   to make things work -- or should they be group-writable
   and belong to a special group, of which everyone is member?

   Should the *.st files have the locking bit set?

 - I noticed that the log files named after the printer (lw17, lw17_d)
   remain empty. DO I need to enable logging specifically?
   Or are they only used for 'local' printers?

 - when I print plain (utf) text that contains funny characters
   (like the euro sign), they show up not as expected.
   Is there a better way to do this conversion?

 - in acme a plain (utf) page looks nicely formatted using a
   proportional font; on the printer I get fixed-width and thus
   changed colums. Can I use proportional font names?
   (rephrased: what arguments can I use for the lp(1) -f flag?)

 - our (network, postscript) printers use A4 paper.
   Do I have to configure that somewhere?

 - when I use 'man -t man |lp' the (horizontal) interword spacing
   is wrong (like 'negative': I get words printed over each other,
   in the list of options the flags and their description are nicely
   lined up in columns, but in the descriptions the spacing wrong)
   When I look at 'man -t man |page -w' it looks fine.
   Some other set-up that I have missed?

 - just a note: to get my face on the banner page, I made the following change:

   diff /n/dump/2002/0412/sys/lib/lp/process/hpost /sys/lib/lp/process/hpost
   35,36c35,38
   < 	facedom=`{awk '/^'$LPMACHID'	/{print $2}' /lib/face/.machinelist}
   < 	if (~ $#facedom 0) facedom=astro
   ---
   > 	if (~ $#facedom 0) {
   > 		facedom=`{awk '/^'$LPMACHID'	/{print $2}' /lib/face/.machinelist}
   > 		if (~ $#facedom 0) facedom=astro
   > 	}

 - and another note: to make it possible to set LPUSERID in lib/profile
   (to avoid having to use -u in the print commands), I changed:

   diff /n/dump/2002/0412/rc/bin/lp /rc/bin/lp
   59c59
   < LPUSERID=$THIS_USERID
   ---
   > if (~ $#LPUSERID 0) LPUSERID=$THIS_USERID


Thanks and Regards,
Axel.