FYI, and apologies for getting off topic on this FreeDOS mailing list: about CUPS, I can tell the following:
1) CUPS apparently does some auto-detection of input file type. It can auto-detect several bitmap image file types, such as PDF, Postscript, HTML, ASCII text... apparently it can detect MS Word DOC for christ sake :-) Detect, not sure if print too. 2) out of the box, it does technically detect HP PCL, but it considers it a "raw" format, and passes that through to the printer without further conversion. 3) with a bit of custom configuration, this automatic filetype detection and auto-conversion (to an internal PostScript format) can be bent to use GhostPCL, to actually prefilter the print job at hand = convert the job from PCL to internal / intermediate / common denominator PostScript. Which then gets rendered onto any back-end driver, such as your proprietary GDI. Someone has documented this back in 2007 (made a mistake at first and asked for help, the problem got solved - see the whole thread): https://lists.cups.org/pipermail/cups/2007-June/041365.html Current default contents of the upstream CUPS /etc/cups/mime.types: https://github.com/apple/cups/blob/master/conf/mime.types#L155 (line 155 is key) Means to me that you still need to get GhostPCL and configure this on your own, but it shouldn't be very difficult. And, this sorcery is not really necessary, if you can do *without* PCL when printing from DOS. Such as, you can use direct PostScript output, if your DOS apps support that. Or plain ASCII should work too. So after you get your basic TCP/IP connectivity to work in DOS, via the MS Network Client, the very next step would be to install and configure Samba. Ask me for an example minimal config file if you're interested. Frank P.S., further reading on CUPS: https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/old/Samba3-HOWTO/CUPS-printing.html#i d2635892 Nominally deprecated / no longer maintained, but in fact pretty informative. I haven't found a newer version of this overview. On 29 Apr 2021 at 22:10, Bryan Kilgallin , freedos-user@lists.sourcRe: [Freedos-user] Printing over the network wrote: > In your use case Bryan, my "package of canned DOS drivers" is just a > first half of the needed configuration. Next up, we need to configure > Samba and CUPS to transport and transform your print jobs :-) _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
