LaserWriter IIg and CUPS

Now that I got CUPS working with Gimp-Print, I want to get my Apple LaserWriter IIg printer connnected to the CUPS server. The LaserWriter IIg is the first printer Apple had which came with on-board Ethernet, and the IIg was one of thsoe products which defined the end of one era and the start of another. The IIg represents the peak of the LaserWriter II series. My IIg is not really a IIg by birth; it started out as a a II, into which somebody stuffed a IIf motherboard. I bought a IIg board on Ebay and it's rockin. Oh yeah, Apple also had the first laserprinter with a brain -dead easy motherboard that could be swapped out in a minute.

Anyhow, I need to get a service called netatalk running on my server. I found tons of info on this right here. This nice guy has pre-compiled versions of netatalk available, and I'm okay with using one of 'em. I pick the one without shadow support, and untar it.

Well, heh, this guy says I need to have Appletalk compiled into the kernel. Fine, I was going to work on doing up an Epia-specific kernel anyway. Time to lay this project aside and work on the kernel upgrade.

Okay, it is a few days later and the kernel has been recompiled, with Appletalk recognition built in.

Time to get to work. I am watching TV upstairs, and using my laptop to talk to the server via putty.

(some time later) This ain't working. You know what? It was easier to recompile the kernel than to get AppleTalk working! I did this before back on my RedHat 9 server, and it was easy. This time, it is awful. Oh well, I'll keep at it.

(some more time later) This really is starting to be lame. I downloaded the 2.x version of netatalk from sourceforge. I install it, and it does not work. There is some blab about "Berkley DB" I go to www.sleepycat.com and get Berkley DB. And you know what? There ain't no installation instructions! At least not something that is intelligible. Not to me, at least. There are what appear to be install instructions, in Chapter 27 of their docs. And the instructions might as well be in Cantonese. They are meaningless to me. The docs for netatalk say this Berkley DB thing is a necessity. The Berkley DB is basically incomprehensible as far as I care.

It was much easier setting up SAMBA, CUPS, and GIMP+PRINT. Much easier.