Imagewriter II and Lion.

Question

Hello,
I used to print with my old Apple Imagewriter II from my Mac Mini (PowerPC, Tiger) and my MacBook Pro (Intel, Snow Leopard) thanks to a Keyspan serial adapter and Linux softwares.
I recently bought a new MacBook Pro under Lion and I can't execute the Linux software available at this link :
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/macosximagewr iter
I am looking for an help.
Thank you.
Alain

Answer 1

John Galt wrote:
I have 57 folders at /usr/share/ but none with the name "model"
Old rules never change.  Garbage in, garbage out.  The path should be /usr/share/cups/model.  You may or may not have the "model" directory.  I can't remember if they even include that anynore.
If the serial backend it installs at /usr/libexec/cups/backend is PPC only, it would be completely inert on a Lion iMac (Intel), right?
Inert under 10.7.x.  Would still function on an Intel computer that was running Rosetta.
The "serial" file I have in that location is dated 3/31/2010 so I'm assuming its presence is due to your Serial Print Enabler, right?
Correct.  An installer will clobber any file of the same name but with an earlier creation date unless they take specific action to make a backup of existing files.
Yes, it's there, dated 12/11/2002, therefore it can't possibly be Intel and is thus useless as well?
A serial file that is dated 2002 will be ppc only and will not work.  My installer will archive any serial file that it finds and remove the executible flag before it installs the one in my package.  I don't like messing with people's computers without giving them a way back out.
foomatic-gswrapper - same date, same question?
foomatic-gs-wrapper and cupsomatic are written in perl.  As such they are neither ppc or Intel.  They rely on the ppc or Intel perl interpreter that comes with OS X.
From the above it would appear the imagewriter-foomatic-1.2-1.ppc.dmgpackage is completely pointless. Does it install anything useful? If so, what and where?
The current package doesn't do much useful right now for Snow Leopard and Lion users.  At least it installs PPDs, cupsomatic, and foomatic-gswrapper that will work together if you install a more recent serial backend and manally add the printer.
The current PPDs found at OpenPrinting.org are all written to use thefoomatic-rip filter which calls Ghsoscript automatically.  There is no more need for the foomatic-gswrapper.
Correct.
Which of the downloads that I linked contained the foomatic-gswrapper you reference? Is it imagewriter-foomatic-1.2-1.ppc.dmg? If so it should be omitted from my procedure, and only Foomatic-RIP is necessary, right? And if that is the case, which of the files I referenced (if any) contains an ImageWriter PPD?
As noted above the imagewriter-foomatic-1.2.ppc.dmg installs the cupsomatic filter, foomatic-gswrapper, and PPD files.  These all work together.
From what you wrote it seems as though I have no ImageWriter-specific PPDinstalled on this Lion Mac. Can that be right? I have absolutely no Imagewriter- specific files at /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/ Only HP and Brother gzip files and a couple of empty localization folders.
Look at the correct path as cited above -- /usr/share/cups/model.  That used to be the CUPS default location.  Only OS X uses /Library/Prinrters/PPDs…
If I have all that correct I have another question - namely how does a PostScript output become a raster file. The only component left is what I called the GPLPostScript interpreter / CUPS interface gplgs-8.71.dmg that installs at/usr/local/share/ghostscript/
Is that what does it?
I'm going to confuse you now.  The actual driver for the ImageWriters is built in to Ghostscript.  It is the iwhi driver.  You may see reference to that if you look at a PPD.  Here's a basic run down of what happens during a print job. I'm sure there are some technical inaccuracies here, but it will give you an idea of what happens.  Here I use foomatic-rip.  The cupsomatic filter does the same job.
An application sends a PDF file along with the job options.
The printing system takes a look at the job and what the printer wants.  In this case, the PPD is saying it wants PostScript and to send the PostScript to the foomatic-rip filter.
The printing system converts the job to PostScript and sends it to the foomatic-rip filter.
The foomatic-rip filter combines the job options with the Postscript and sends everything to Ghoscript and the iwhi driver built in to Ghostscript.
It now comes back in a form the printer understands and is sent to the printer via the serial backend which comminicates with the printer.  It all magically appears on the paper.
I think this is the essence of my remaining confusion. Where are those "old PPDs", since I can't find them anywhere, and if the cupsomatic filter is as old asfoomatic-gswrapper - both pre-Intel - how can it possibly work?
The old PPDs are at /usr/share/cups/model.  Both cupsomatic and foomatic-gswrapper are perl scripts which are neither ppc or Intel.  They are text based command language.