Installing CUPS on MCP

[Neil Waldhauer]

Well, the short answer is to install rpm/yum on MCP, then cups.

But I like the interfaces for Printman and Cupswiz. It makes configuring printers so much easier. I can download these from Alex Taylor's website, and, after installing the prerequisites, I can get Printman to start. Cupswiz initially starts with an error in DosLoadModule, but can be corrected by fiddling with UCONV.DLL and friends.

But, after that, Cupswiz comes up empty. I have both cups and hplip installed, but where did the printer models go? (see attached screenshot)

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello Neil

I experienced a similar thing on ArcaOS 5.1, it used to said "Bad", but it got fixed with magic, I don't know how.

Here it is the thread, sorry it does not help: https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,3434.15.html

Maybe it is that cups daemon is not starting.

Regards

[Pete]

Hi Neil

Looks like the cups daemon - aka %UNIXROOT%:\usr\sbin\cupsd.exe - is not running.

Do you have the cups daemon in the Startup folder?


Regards

Pete

[Neil Waldhauer]

The cups daemon wasn't running. If I start it, and then run cupswiz, I still don't see any printers.

[Alex Taylor]

Click on the logo icon on the left of the cupswiz window to bring up the product information. Is the path to CUPS correct?

What does

Code Select Expand

<cupspath>\sbin\lpinfo.exe -m
produce?

[Neil Waldhauer]

Well, that helps!

Version 1.18

System boot volume: C:
Local CUPS directory: C:\CUPS
Local driver repository: D:\OS2IMAGE

which lpinfo
c:\usr\sbin\lpinfo.exe

lpinfo -m
lpinfo: bad file number

which cupsd
c:\usr\sbin\cupsd.exe

set unixroot
UNIXROOT=C:

[Pete]

Hi Neil

lpinfo -m
lpinfo: bad file number

Are you sure cupsd.exe is running? - the above result suggests it is not or possibly lpinfo cannot find a support file.
If you have PMdll installed it might be worth dropping lpinfo.exe onto the PMdll object to see if there are other problems.


Regards

Pete

[Neil Waldhauer]

Thanks, Pete. While running cupsd made no difference to cupswiz, it made a difference for lpinfo.

The output from lpinfo is attached.

[Neil Waldhauer]

I created an icon in the startup folder to start the CUPS daemon. I gave cupswiz.exe a command line containing the parent cups directory, C:\usr in my case. Now I get a list of printers.

I can select my printer, scan the local network and discover the printer, but when I go to create the printer object, Cupswiz displays an error (see attached). No printer is created.

[Rich Walsh]

Do you have the 'PSPRINT' driver installed? I believe it provides the list of printers. You can find it on any AOS install DVD at 'x:\CID\SERVER\PRINTPAK\PSPRINT.ZIP'

[Neil Waldhauer]

I think I have PSPRINT installed. The installation routine does not actually notify you of success or failure. Cups Wiz does select PSPRINT in the screen before the Error.

Here is a fragment of error_log from my attempt to create a printer

E [29/Dec/2024:16:02:29 +0800] Unable to get hostname: Function not implemented
E [29/Dec/2024:16:06:01 +0800] [CGI] Unable to execute ippfind utility: No such file or directory
E [29/Dec/2024:16:06:27 +0800] [CGI] Unable to execute ippfind utility: No such file or directory
W [29/Dec/2024:16:06:31 +0800] cupsdDoSelect: select() returned 4 (Interrupted system call)... pause and retry select()

Also, CUPSWIZ thinks my local driver repository is D:\OS2IMAGE, while I think it should be C:\OS2\DLL\PSPRINT or maybe C:\OS2\DLL. I don't know how to tell Cups Wiz otherwise.

[Neil Waldhauer]

I found Cups Wiz is getting the driver location from OS2.INI

PM_INSTALL
PDR_DIR

Unfortunately, I cannot set a value that evades the syntax error message from VX-REXX. Probably I should look at the source code for Cups Wiz on Net labs.

[Neil Waldhauer]

The source code led me to my installation of PSPRINT.DRV. I think I installed it correctly, but when I try to create a printer, PSPRINT adds this to POPUPLOG.OS2

Code Select Expand

01-06-2025  06:28:59  SYS3175  PID 0022  TID 0002  Slot 0042
C:\OS2\PMSPOOL.EXE
c0000005
1ef407c7
P1=00000001  P2=00000007  P3=XXXXXXXX  P4=XXXXXXXX 
EAX=00000000  EBX=00535d6c  ECX=1cb80c80  EDX=00000007
ESI=1a34a7f0  EDI=00535ed4 
DS=0053  DSACC=d0f3  DSLIM=7fffffff 
ES=0053  ESACC=d0f3  ESLIM=7fffffff 
FS=150b  FSACC=00f3  FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=005b:1ef407c7  CSACC=d0df  CSLIM=7fffffff
SS:ESP=0053:00535978  SSACC=d0f3  SSLIM=7fffffff
EBP=00535c00  FLG=00012202

PSPRINT.DRV 0002:000107c7

[Alex Taylor]

You may need to add the path to the correct CUPS install as a parameter to cupswiz.exe.

Regarding the trap, the only thing I can think of is the PSPRINT install is broken somehow. 

If you go into PrintMan and choose File -> Manage presentation drivers, what does the entry for PSPRINT report? In particular the Version and Status columns.  Next, if you double-click on the PSPRINT entry, does it pop up its list of supported printers?

[Roderick Klein]

You may need to add the path to the correct CUPS install as a parameter to cupswiz.exe.

Regarding the trap, the only thing I can think of is the PSPRINT install is broken somehow. 

If you go into PrintMan and choose File -> Manage presentation drivers, what does the entry for PSPRINT report? In particular the Version and Status columns.  Next, if you double-click on the PSPRINT entry, does it pop up its list of supported printers?

Alex is installing CUPS in MCP or ECS even worth the trouble ? As I seem to recall the that the postscript driver in ArcaOS has had extensive updates, this also includes PIN.EXE.
A lot of the postscript PPD files with PIN.EXE would just crash because of bad coding.
Is that correct Alex ?

Roderick