lpd problem with Apple LaserWriter

[Patrick Powell]

quirk at hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>We have a couple of Apple LaserWriters attached to Sun 3 servers.
>Periodically the daemon gets "hung" and the jobs just sit in the queue.
>The first job in the queue is flagged as "active".  The status is of the
>printer is "ready and printing" and the daemon is still present.  The only
>fix seems to be to "abort" and "start" the daemon....

The PLP (Public? Powell's? Line Printer) software is a reverse engineered
version of the Berkeley LPD software.  It has (gasp!) error messages.
Timeouts.  Automatic restart of hung jobs, if you want.  Try getting it
from julius.cs.umn.edu, anonymous ftp, /public/PLP.3.0.tar.Z.

If you have a transcript source license,  I can send you a "fixed" version
that appears to solve several problems on Sun4/4.0. If you have a binary
license,  I can send you a binary...

I have observed the problem with the laserwriter several times before, and
it has usually been tracked down to serial line noise problems.

Patrick Powell
Prof. Patrick Powell, Dept. Computer Science, EECS 4-192,
University of Minnesota,  Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612)625-3543/625-4002