Printing from dosemu via CUPS

[Samuel Falvo <falvosa@yahoo.com>]

Well, I finally solved my last problem, and got NewDeal Office working under
dosemu 1.0.2.1.  Unfortunately, I now have another problem.  Assistance would
be greatly appreciated.

Enclosed at the bottom of this message is my current dosemu.conf file. 
Basically, I have CUPS installed and printing successfully to an HP OfficeJet
G85 printer.  From Linux, it works great.  From the DOS command prompt, I can
type something like this:

C:\> echo hello >lpt1

or
 
C:\> dir >lpt1

and after many minutes later (because CUPS is slower than molasses in January),
I can get a nice greeting or directory listing out of the printer.

While running in NewDeal Office, however, things don't work nearly as well.

I have NDO configured with a Postscript-compatible printer using LPT1, and a
Postscript-compatible printer to File.  When I print to a file, it asks me for
the filename, and once that happens, it emits the Postscript file.  Running
that file through CUPS manually using Linux' "lp" command works great.  It has
issues with fonts though... :(

But when I try to use the printer directly with LPT1, it fails utterly and
outright.  I'm pretty confident that it's a xdosemu configuration problem on my
part, but I've not seen any documentation on this either in Google's database,
the GEOS newsgroups, *OR* in the dosemu FAQ or other available documentation. 
Hence my inclusion of my config file for evaluation.  In short, when printing
to LPT1 directly under xdosemu, the emulator either dumps core, NDO will crash
with a KR-17, or NDO enters a deadlock so tight that even the mouse won't
respond.

If someone can help me out, that'd be great.  I do not believe this is an
NDO-specific problem; I believe this would behave as I've documented for any
software that directly accessed the LPT ports without going through DOS.

So what I'm looking for, I think, is EITHER:

1.  Get NDO/GEOS to write to LPT1 via MS-DOS' LPT1 device,

OR

2.  Get xdosemu to pipe whatever data goes to LPT1 to CUPS.

Any input you folks can provide on this would be immensely appreciated.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II
Falvo Technical Solutions
http://www.falvotech.com

--- dosemu.conf ---

##############################################################################
# This file is /etc/dosemu.conf, included by <DOSEMU_LIB_DIR>/global.conf
#
# Linux DOSEMU configuration  for parser versions >= 3 (dosemu-0.97.0.1)
#
# ./doc/README.txt (chapter 2.) contains a description of the syntax
# and the usage of dosemu.conf.
#
#
# Access rights are defined in
#
#      /etc/dosemu.users
#
##############################################################################



# Notes for editing this section:
#
#   In    $_xxx = (n)    n is a numerical or boolean value
#                  =     =
#   In    $_zzz = "s"    s is a string
#
# Please edit only beteen the brakets and quotes and keep the rest intact.
#        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

$_debug = "-a+c"		# same format as -D commandline option
			# (but without the -D in front)
$_features= ""		# list of temporary hacks, see release notes in
			# the file ChangeLog. e.g "0:1 2:0", which means
			# to set feature_0 to 1 and feature_2 to 0.
$_mapping= ""		# prefered mapping driver, one of:
			# auto, mapself, mapfile, mapshm
$_timint = (on)		# emulate INT08 type timer interrupts
$_mathco = (on)		# or off
$_cpu = "80386"		# CPU showing to DOS, valid values:  "80[345]86"
			# or "emulated" for non-native CPU (386 in this case)

$_rdtsc = (off)		# if possible use Pentium cycle counter
$_cpuspeed = (0)	# 0 = calibrated by dosemu, else given (e.g.166.666)
$_pci = (off)

$_xms = (16384)		# in Kbyte
$_ems = (2048)		# in Kbyte
$_ems_frame = (0xe000)
$_dpmi = (0x2000)		# in Kbyte
$_dosmem = (640)	# in Kbyte, < 640
$_hardware_ram = ""	# list of segment values/ranges such as
			# "0xc8000 range 0xcc000,0xcffff"

$_secure ="ngd"		# secure for: n (normal users), g (guest), d (dexe)
			# empty string: depending on 'restricted'
			# "0": always insecure (not recommended)
$_odd_hosts = ""	# black list such as "lucifer.hell.com billy.the.cat"
$_diskless_hosts=""	# black list such as "hacker1 newbee gateway1"

$_emusys = ""		# empty or 3 char., config.sys   -> config.XXX
$_emubat = ""		# empty or 3 char., autoexec.bat -> autoexec.XXX 
$_emuini = ""		# empty or 3 char., system.ini   -> system.XXX

$_hogthreshold = (1)	# 0 == all CPU power to DOSEMU
$_irqpassing = ""	# list of IRQ number (2-15) to pass to DOS such as
			# "3 8 10"
$_speaker = ""		# or "native" or "emulated"


$_term_char_set = ""	# Global code page and character set selection.
			# "" == automatic, else: ibm, latin, latin1, latin2

$_term_color = (on)	# terminal with color support
$_term_updfreq = (4)	# time between refreshs (units: 20 == 1 second)
$_escchar = (30)	# 30 == Ctrl-^, special-sequence prefix

$_rawkeyboard = (0)	# bypass normal keyboard input, maybe dangerous
$_layout = "auto"	# one of: finnish(-latin1), de(-latin1), be, it, us
			# uk, dk(-latin1), keyb-no, no-latin1, dvorak, po
			# sg(-latin1), fr(-latin1), sf(-latin1), es(-latin1)
			# sw, hu(-latin2), hu-cwi, keyb-user
			# hr-cp852, hr-latin2, cz-qwerty, cz-qwertz.
			# Or 'auto' (which tries to generate the table from
			# the current Linux console settings)
$_keybint = (on)	# emulate PCish keyboard interrupt


$_X_updfreq = (5)	# time between refreshs (units: 20 == 1 second)
$_X_title = "NewDeal Office"	# Title in the top bar of the window
$_X_icon_name = "NewDeal Office"	# Text for icon, when minimized
$_X_keycode = (auto) 	# on == translate keybord via dosemu keytables
			# or 'off' or 'auto'
$_X_blinkrate = (8)	# blink rate for the cursor
$_X_font = ""		# basename from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/*
			# (without extension) e.g. "vga"
$_X_mitshm = (on)	# Use shared memory extensions
$_X_sharecmap = (off)	# share the colormap with other applications
$_X_fixed_aspect = (on)	# Set fixed aspect for resize the graphics window
$_X_aspect_43 = (on)	# Always use an aspect ratio of 4:3 for graphics
$_X_lin_filt = (off)	# Use linear filtering for >15 bpp interpolation
$_X_bilin_filt = (off)	# Use bi-linear filtering for >15 bpp interpolation
$_X_mode13fact = (2)	# initial size factor for video mode 0x13 (320x200)
$_X_winsize = ""	# "x,y" of initial windows size (defaults to float)
$_X_gamma = (1.0)	# gamma correction
$_X_vgaemu_memsize = (1024) # size (in Kbytes) of the frame buffer for emulated
vga
$_X_lfb = (on)	# use linear frame buffer in VESA modes
$_X_pm_interface = (on)	# use protected mode interface for VESA modes
$_X_mgrab_key = "Home"	# KeySym name to activate mouse grab, empty == off
$_X_vesamode = ""	# "xres,yres ... xres,yres"
			# List of vesamodes to add. The list has to contain
			# SPACE separated "xres,yres" pairs

$_video = "vga"		# one of: plainvga, vga, ega, mda, mga, cga
$_console = (0)		# use 'console' video
$_graphics = (0)	# use the cards BIOS to set graphics
$_videoportaccess = (1)	# allow videoportaccess when 'graphics' enabled
$_vbios_seg = (0xc000)	# set the address of your VBIOS (e.g. 0xe000)
$_vbios_size = (0x10000)# set the size of your BIOS (e.g. 0x8000)
$_vmemsize = (1024)	# size of regen buffer
$_chipset = ""		# one of: plainvga, trident, et4000, diamond, avance
			# cirrus, matrox, wdvga, paradise, ati, s3, sis
$_dualmon = (0)		# if you have one vga _plus_ one hgc (2 monitors)


$_vbootfloppy = ""	# if you want to boot from a virtual floppy:
			# file name of the floppy image under DOSEMU_LIB_DIR
			# e.g. "floppyimage" disables $_hdimage
			#      "floppyimage +hd" does _not_ disable $_hdimage
$_floppy_a ="threeinch"	# or "fiveinch" or "atapi" or empty, if not existing
			# optionally the device may be appended such as
			# "threeinch:/dev/fd0"
$_floppy_b = ""		# dito for B:

$_hdimage = "/dev/hda1"	# list of hdimages under DOSEMU_LIB_DIR
			# assigned in this order such as
			# "hdimage_c hdimage_d hdimage_e"
			# If the name begins with '/dev/', then partion
			# access is done instead of virtual hdimage such as
			# "/dev/hda1" or "/dev/hda1:ro" for readonly
			# Currently mounted devices and swap are refused.
			# Hdimages and devices may be mixed such as
			# "hdimage_c /dev/hda1 /dev/hda3:ro"
			# Note: 'wholedisk' is _not_ supported.
$_hdimage_r = $_hdimage	# hdimages for 'restricted access (if different)

$_aspi = ""		# list of generic SCSI devices to make available
			# for the builtin aspi driver (format of an entry
			# is 'device:type:mappedtarget' such as
			# "sg2:WORM sg3:Sequential-Access:6 sg4:CD-ROM" or
			# "sg2:4 sg3:1:6 sg4:5" (which are equal)

$_com1 = ""		# e.g. "/dev/mouse" or "/dev/ttyS0"
$_com2 = ""		# e.g. "/dev/modem" or "/dev/ttyS1"
$_com3 = ""		# dito                 "/dev/ttyS2"
$_com4 = ""		# dito                 "/dev/ttyS3"
			# Note: all "/dev/ttyXX" may be suffixed by the IRQ
			# used (instead of the default one), such as
			# "/dev/ttyS2 irq 5" or "/dev/ttyS3 irq 9"

$_ttylocks = ""		# Lock directory (e.g. "/var/lock")
			# default ("") is /usr/spool/uucp

$_mouse = "imps2"		# one of: microsoft, mousesystems, logitech, mmseries
			# mouseman, hitachi, busmouse, ps2, imps2
$_mouse_dev = "/dev/mouse"	# one of: com1, com2, com3, com4 or /dev/mouse
$_mouse_flags = ""	# list of none or one or more of:
			# "emulate3buttons cleardtr"
$_mouse_baud = (0)	# baudrate, 0 == don't set

$_printer = "OfficeJet"	# list of (/etc/printcap) printer names to appear as
			# LPT1, LPT2, LPT3 (not all are needed, empty for none)
$_printer_timeout = (5)# idle time in seconds before spooling out

$_ports = ""		# list of portnumbers such as "0x1ce 0x1cf 0x238"
			# or "0x1ce range 0x280,0x29f 310"
			# or "range 0x1a0,(0x1a0+15)"

$_ipxsupport = (off)	# or on
$_novell_hack = (off)
$_vnet = (off)		# 'on' for packet-multi (used by dosnet)

$_sound = (off)		# sound support on/off
$_sb_base = (0x220)
$_sb_irq = (5)
$_sb_dma = (1)
$_sb_dsp = "/dev/dsp"
$_sb_mixer = "/dev/mixer"
$_mpu_base = "0x330"



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