Print to printer connected to ltsp thin client

[Warren Togami]

Frantisek Hanzlik wrote:
> As I can see on Ubuntu and Debian forums, jetpipe is very simple python
> script, and at this time isn't capable initialize serial line printers.
> I a week ago upgrade some system I manage to F9/LTSP 5 and must solve
> printing to printers (paralell, serial and USB too) connected to thin
> clients.
> Thus I was build print server which was used in ltsp 4 - "lp_server"
> from P.Powell.
> After several days utilization, I must say this work without problems.
> (On older versions K12LTSP I was using this program for more than four
> years, and it works well, with small system footprint).
> 
> For easy integration lp_server to F9 I made:
> 
> - lp_server RPM package for F9/i386 lp_server-1.1.6-1.fc9.i386.rpm
> available at
> http://hanzlici.cz/packages/fedora/lp_server/lp_server-1.1.6-1.fc9.i386.rpm
> (23kB)
> 
> - lp_server source RPM lp_server-1.1.6-1.fc9.src.rpm available at
> http://hanzlici.cz/packages/fedora/lp_server/lp_server-1.1.6-1.fc9.src.rpm
> (73 KB)
> 
> -  patch for ltsp-init-common script from ltsp-5.1.7, which replaces
> jetpipe with lp-server: ltsp-init-common.patch.tgz available at
> http://hanzlici.cz/packages/fedora/lp_server/ltsp-init-common.patch.tgz
> Patch is against ltsp-5.1.7 package (1.2 kB)

jetpipe is the upstream standard for printing.  Debian/Ubuntu developers 
confirmed that jetpipe can't do serial printing.  Both said they 
evaluated it for Debian or Ubuntu but they cannot ship it because the 
copyrights on the source files are unclear.  They were unable to contact 
the author to clarify the copyright thus both are unable to ship it. 
Fedora tends to have as-strict or stricter copyright/license compliance 
requirements than other distros so we likely cannot ship this either.

While lp_server cannot be shipped in Fedora directly, perhaps you could 
convince upstream to make a standard lts.conf option to allow using 3rd 
party print servers other than the standard jetpipe.

Otherwise, I personally cannot prioritize working on it.  Notes about 
your packages and how to use it should be added to the K12Linux wiki though.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com