Printers :: What is the FULL procedure printing?  (frugal)



Here's my procedure so far.  (This is for the frugal install.)

  1.  Make sure that the printer is on and properly connected to the computer.
  2. DSL Menu -> System -> Printing/lpd -> configure printer
  3. Accept the license, use the default owner and group values for spooldir, and overwrite existing entries.
  4. Select Printer Drive Selection
  5. Go through each of the printer types until you find your model of printer. When you find your model of printer, select it.
  6. Select the appropriate Interface Setup.
  7. Select the appropriate paper format (probably US letter)
  8. Print the test page to verify that the configurations are correct. If nothing prints, or if gibberish comes out, at least one of your configuration settings is incorrect.
  9. When the test page prints out correctly, select the option to install the printer with the values shown. Note that the name of the printer is "lp".
 10. Select the option to finish the installation.
 11. DSL menu -> System -> Printer/lpd -> start
 12. In a shell, type "export PRINTER=lp".
 13. To save the settings, open Emelfm, go to the directory /home/dsl/, and click on the H button to reveal the hidden files.
 14. Edit the file .filetool.lst, which contains the list of directories whose contents are to be saved during reboots. Add the following directories: /opt/printcap, /opt/apsfilter, and /var/spool/lpd/lp .

WHAT AM I MISSING?  It seems that I'm able to get it working fine for awhile, only to later have the printing malfunction sometime later, as if something isn't saving properly or I missed one crucial step.
How are you trying to print? From shell, from an app?

If you issue a ps | grep lp command do you see lpd Waiting?

If you issue the command env does PRINTER show up?

Do you actually have something in /opt/printcap?

Can you print a simple text file from shell specifying your printer name like:

lpr -h -Plp some_text.txt

or do you see error messages?

Unless you are running a very old version of DSL, .filetool.lst is in /opt/ and not your home directory. So, perhaps you are not getting the necessary files in the backup.

Typically, an attempt to setup a printer, will automatically cause a prompt to save your printer setting upon the shutdown process, see /usr/local/bin/exitcheck.sh.

Also, starting a new shell and exporting something is no use for anything not started under that shell. It should be done in bootlocal.sh or in .xinitrc..
I put "export PRINTER=lp" in the file opt/bootlocal.sh before shutting down, but I just booted up DSL again, and the PRINTER=lp does NOT show up when I type "env" in a shell.  Why not?
The "ps | grep lp" command does not yield the " lpd Waiting" response.

I put "export PRINTER=lp" in the file opt/bootlocal.sh before shutting down, but I just booted up DSL again, and the PRINTER=lp does NOT show up when I type "env" in a shell.  So I typed "export PRINTER=lp" in the shell again, so that's the only reason "PRINTER=lp" shows up when I type "env".

The "lpr -h -Plp" still yields error messages now even though it was able to print the last time I booted up.

I'm using DSL version 3.4.8, and .filetool.lst is in  the home directory, not the opt directory.
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