On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 11:33:52AM -0500, Alejandro Leyva Rabinovich wrote: > Hi all, i've never seen this asked here before, we have an ibm 3900 and > 4000 printers installed, both are used in os/390 2.6, is there any way to > use them in linux? where i could find more info?
If you are running Linux under VM, you can use the LPD functions in RSCS to drive them as line printers. You won't be able to use any of the APA or other graphics features unless you write applications that can generate the 3900 datastreams (and not all of them are very well documented). See the RSCS Planning and Configuration manual for how to set up a LPD link in RSCS and mapping specific destinations to NJE destinations via the form code. Adam Thornton and I wrote an article for Technical Support magazine describing this back in 2000 if you want a more condensed version of the setup (see www.naspa.com to get a PDF copy). On the Linux side, you'll have the best luck using CUPS for printing. Use the Genicom line printer driver, and define the device URI as a LPR link (eg, lpr://vmip/linkname/...options...). The CUPS administrator manual describes how to do this in some detail -- you can get the docs from www.cups.org, or (after you install CUPS), looking at the docs provided at http://localhost:691/. The Genicom drivers include one with a "dumb" line printer driver, which translates well via the RSCS line printer emulator code. You can then use the 3900 and 4000 as generic line printers for Linux. If you can find the APA documentation, you could also write a ghostscript filter to print a ghostscript raster output (which would make these printers PostScript capable). If you look in the source code for ghostscript, there is a module that converts a raster to a specific printer code sequence (there are modules for HP PCL and a few other printers). Armed with the APA documentation for the 3900, you should be able to modify that code to emit the right magic for the 3900, and then *everything* works. It'll burn CPU like crazy (PostScript raster processing is not easy work), but you'll have the capability to print anything Linux can produce. If you're not running Linux under VM, you'll need to modify the UR driver that Mr. Beattie wrote to emit the right CCWs for printer devices, then define the 3900 printer to CUPS as spool:/dev/printer (or whatever you tell the driver to do). Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the CUPS Software Programmers Guide will tell you what you need to do to write a back-end for the printer device and the appropriate filter and printer drivers. I'd suggest looking at rastertohp as starting point -- at the point that this printer driver is called, CUPS has already parsed all the PS stuff and generated a raster for transmission to the printer. All you have to do is convert the supplied raster to the format you need for the printer, and you're done. -- db ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
