magicfilter and (pdf = postscript) problems
Hi, Need to get pdf file printing working using magicfilter. The printer is a LaserJet 4P (no postscript module) Looked at the bug reports and came across the suggestion to include this line in the ljet-filter file: # PDF - Added by CRT 97/05/12 0 %PDFpipe/usr/bin/acroread -toPostScript After experimenting with this, I've come to the conclusion that, on my machine at least, this is *not* a good idea. It would be best to use ghostscript directly. Assuming a test file name of 'test', I've tried a few experiments. First of all I needed a .pdf file, and the easiest way to obtain one was to create one from a postscript file using ps2pdf. to .ps using pdf2ps Convert test.pdf to a .ps file using pdf2ps. One time when printing there were a few aesthetic problems (the first lines of the 2nd page were overlaid on the first page). However at least it did print on the LaserJet. Another time the first sheet had some errors (not identical to before, but similar: 'operand stack: --nostringval-') But the main printout was clean. (in support of above weirdness here is another report: http://xp9.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?recnum=1304495server=db97p4x; CONTEXT=876965612.1870135791hitnum=0 admitedly using a different printer) Same again, except final actual viewing and printing done in gv. Again the first sheet had the beginnings of the 2nd page, but the main printout was good. Tried a different file. First it was converted to postscript using pdf2ps, then viewed with gv and printed. No problems. use gv to print .pdf Secondly the pdf file was viewed directly in gv and printed. This time there were problems. Again the first line of the 2nd page followed by a few lines of ghostscript type error messages appeared on a first sheet. However the printout itself appeared *unblemished* on a separate sheet. use gs to print .pdf Thirdly, tried using the magicfilter commandline for postscript directly on the test.pdf file: gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -r600 -sDEV=ljet4 -sOutputFile=\|lpr test.pdf This time there were no problems at all. :-))) One problem with the above command line is that ghostscript requires a ^D to exit. The aesthetic problems encountered were probably those documented in the file /usr/doc/gs/NEWS.gz Due to the above success I tried to add the following line to /usr/sbin/ljet4-filter: 0 %PDFfilter /usr/bin/gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -r600 -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=- - but this again gives the lpd error: lpd[16653]: lp: Daemon filter 'f' terminated (13) My guess is that ghostscript isn't exiting cleanly after the conversion. The 13 corresponds to value of status.w_termsig in lpd file printjob.c w_termsig is defined in /usr/include/waitstatus.h The following DejaNews article seems to be using the same idea tho :-? http://xp5.dejanews.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]serv er=db96q5CONTEXT=876965923.1249771631hitnum=3 admittedly, again, using a different printer ... catting into gs to ljet4 Using the following command gives errors: cat index.pdf.ps2pdf | gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -r600 -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=\|lpr - The errors are: Unrecoverable error: ioerror in bytesavailable Operand stack: --nostringval-- --nostringval-- Unexpected interpreter error -12. Error object: (f80)op(174:bytesavailable)0x802ccf0 Operand stack at 0x80f3478: 0x80faea4: 0x03 file --S-rx--- 0x0001 0x080f6d70 0x80faeac: 0x03 file --S-rx--- 0x0001 0x080f6d70 Execution stack at 0x80f34cc: 0x80fc80c: 0x0f oper --F---e-- 0x 0x0801ef80 = %interp_exit 0x80fc814: 0x12 str --F-rxe-- 0x 0x = 0x80fc81c: 0x03 file --L-rxe-- 0x0001 0x08104048 0x80fc824: 0x05 mpry --G-rxe-- 0x0020 0x0815d694 0x80fc82c: 0x05 mpry --G-rxe-- 0x0057 0x0815db30 0x80fc834: 0x05 mpry --G-rxe-- 0x0039 0x08132c76 Dictionary stack at 0x80f33f4: 0x80fd03c: 0x02 dict --Gwrx--- 0x 0x080fd18c 0x80fd044: 0x02 dict --Gwrx--- 0x 0x08141e18 0x80fd04c: 0x02 dict --Lwrx--- 0x 0x08102090 0x80fd054: 0x02 dict --Lwrx--- 0x 0x08102090 0x80fd05c: 0x02 dict --Gwrx--- 0x001c 0x0814fd8c 0x80fd064: 0x02 dict --Gwrx--- 0x 0x08158960 0x80fd06c: 0x02 dict --Lwrx--- 0x0815 0x081042dc to .ps using acroread Convert test.pdf to a .ps file using acroread. Obtained a postscript file, but when attempting to print to a HPLaserJet4P, lpd gave the error: lpd[16425]: lp: Daemon filter 'f' terminated (13) However the same file *would* print fine to a postscript printer. Investigating further, by grabbing the command used by magicfilter: gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -r600 -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=test.lj4 test.ps reveals the following error message in gs: Error: /undefinedresource in true Operand stack: false --dict:13/13-- Execution stack:
experiences during the installation of frozen
I installed dpkg-mountable from projects/experimental and installed from a mountable partition. I left it overnight and when arriving back the next morning was greeted by the following messages: attempt to access beyond end of device 02:00: rw=0, want=16, limit=2 Directory sread (sector 32) failed Rebooted and this message never came back. During the process of rebooting LILO hung on LI which was solved by booting from the rescue and re-running lilo. (my guess is that some of these problems at least were due to having) ldconfig: warning: can't open /usr/lib/i486-linuxaout/libdl.so.1 (no such file or directory, skipping) ldconfig: warning: can't open /usr/lib/i486-linuxaout/libf2c.i2.so.2 (no such file or directory, skipping) ldconfig: warning: can't open /usr/lib/i486-linuxaout/libf2c.so.2 (no such file or directory, skipping) igor the ldconfig's messages are nothing to worry about james that's simply because the symlinks are left dangling because the package was removed and not purged first message went away after installing a new version ld.so.conf 2nd and 3rd messages kept repeating peridocally throughout the upgrade (I had previously removed all my fortran stuff, being short on space) gpm reports that it can't find /dev/ttyS0 unable to lock dpkg status file /var/lib/dpkg/lock this means your system is messed up badly menu-?? : Dpkg is locking status area: forking to background and wait for /var/lib/dpkg/lock to become unlocked igor and the dpkg lock problem is supposedly fixed in the new menu package version... having checked no dpkg or dselect were running I deleted the file. However the message still kept coming back. I saw it often, but then again I ran dselect many times in order to get the configurations right. When given the choice between xinit, startx, xdm, the script never allowed me to choose and went straight into xdm mode. Admittedly thats what I usually use, but I had been toying with the idea of removing this. That meant that I needed to do a C-A-F1 to get back to the installation which might have less experienced users stumped! igor jay: however that startx/xdm problem should be reported jay the computer was left in a completely unusable state at one point. jay Everything remained unconfigured. jay xdm was cycling in and out, whenever I logged in. igor ouch jay It was exceedingly difficult to enter the log9n, passwd and kill xdm ... took about 15 minutes igor yeah... this is bad [undernet(dcc)] [19:10] #debian : 6 members ( 0 chops), 0 bans (not op'd) [][User: ] [On: ] [Query: =undernet] jay I think alot of the problems may have been caused by the root partition being full. jay err ... having filled up. igor oh jay I'm not sure tho. jay The good news is that once xdm was taken care of, a few cycles thru dselect cured most of the problems. igor see, now you can't report bugs except that dpkg should know beforehand when the disk is going to fill up, but I believe there are several bugs already open on that topic... -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
experiences during the installation of frozen
Hiya, Sorry for sending that last message. It was a draft and needed extensive editing before being sent. I clicked on the mouse whilst my mailer was being redrawn and disaster Apologies to igor and james whose names appear in the mess ... Regards, jay -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
How I installed frozen using dselect.
Hiya,
Dselect only gives one the choice between mounting stable or unstable.
I wanted to beta test frozen before the release date and so needed to
somehow convince dselect to allow this - but found no option to.
(I hear that using ftp install this isn't the case, but I installed from
a mounted drive)
Here's the solution:
I keep the debian distribution on /mnt/debian.
First make an alternative top structure.
mkdir /mnt/debian2; cd /mnt/debian2
Now recreate the directory structure that is contained in /mnt/debian
#This wee line creates a secont root tree
ls -1 --directory ../debian/* | sed 's$\.\.\/debian\/$$' | \
xargs -n 1 -i ln -s ../debian/{} ./{}
Now we must trick dselect into believing its installing unstable
rm unstable; ln -s ../debian/frozen ./unstable
Thats it! Now just tell dselect where the alternative tree is rooted and
say yes when dselect prompts whether you want to install the unstable
distribution!
Regards,
jay
ps: am not on the mailing lists so please CC any comments
pps: if anyone wants a point and click GUI interface to the above, then
just mail me and I'll put something together for you using
widtools. We could call it Xdefrost ;) hehe!!
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