[Xprint] Xprint 009.001 test canidate builds...

[Roland Mainz]

Aleksander Adamowski wrote:
> >>I hacked-up some test builds for the upcoming 009.001 maintaince release
> >>(and for the LinuxTag :)
> >>
> >>http://www.nrubsig.org/people/gisburn/work/xprint/test_20040624_009_001/xprint-2004-06-24-test_009_001-0.9.001.i386.rpm
> >>http://www.nrubsig.org/people/gisburn/work/xprint/test_20040624_009_001/xprint-2004-06-24-test_009_001-0.9.001.src.rpm
> >>http://www.nrubsig.org/people/gisburn/work/xprint/test_20040624_009_001/xprint-2004-06-24-test_009_001-i386-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
> >>http://www.nrubsig.org/people/gisburn/work/xprint/test_20040624_009_001/xprint_mozdev_org_source-2004-06-24-test_009_001.tar.gz
> >>
> >>
> I have suggestion for one extremely important improvement:
> make error messages going to logs more descriptive!
> 
> I've installed the latest xprint test build, as well as earlier release
> 009, both on Mandrake Linux and on Fedora Core. I weren't able to print
> on both of them.

;-(

> On Fedora Core, I get the following error:
> 
> Jun 25 17:33:01 fedorabox Xprt_33: lpstat: Unable to connect to server:
> Connection refused

1. Does Fedora require that the user which want to print must be in a
special group (like "lp", "print", "cups", etc.) ?
2. Does "lpstat" work for user "root" ?

> On Mandrake Linux, I get the following error:
> 
> Jun 25 17:18:43 mandrakebox Xprt_33: lpr: unable to create temporary file.
> Jun 25 17:18:43 mandrakebox Xprt_33: AUDIT: Fri Jun 25 17:18:43 2004:
> 29170 Xprt: client 1 disconnected

What do % ls -lad /tmp # and % ls -lad /var/tmp # say ? David Schweiger
looked at the issue a while ago and said that the error is coming from
CUPS's version of "lpr" itself - the /etc/init.d/xprint script just
wraps that output.

Does % chmod a+rwxt /tmp /var/tmp # fix the problem (see
http://www.debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=16056) ?

David:
Do you remember where the matching source in CUPS was ?

> On both machines I can print without any problem from KDE and Gnome
> applications using their specific print systems.

First guess is that the way how Xprt switches uid/gid internally when
submitting the job may the root of the problem. If access to the print
spooler is restricted via a special group membership we may see the
problem above. I hoped that the issue way solved after
http://xprint.freedesktop.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=608 ("Can't print
on Debian/CUPS due to error 'Xprt_64: lpr: unable to print file:
server-error-not-accepting-jobs'") but it seems there is still something
wrong... ;-(

> Unfortunately I have no time to debug this further. Of course I could
> strace the Xprt process to see which specific file it tries to create,
> or to which specific server it tries to connect. But this would take
> time I do not have at my disposal.

;-(

Giuseppe:
Can you please take a look and check what's wrong on Mandrake, please ?

> In my opinion each log message should specify precisely on which object
> a particular action fails: which file cannot be read, which server
> cannot be contacted, what directory doesn't exist...
> 
> A log message should at least look like "Cannot ACTION on OBJECT", where
> the OBJECT is specified in detail, so there's no ambiguity.
> 
> So I propose that all messages in XPrint that go to syslog are made more
> descriptive - this change would make the work of all testers much easier
> and provide for better acceptance of XPrint in variuos distributions.

I'll file a RFE later today...

> I guess that XPrint isn't shipped with major Linux distributions yet
> mainly because it fails to work fine out of the box (RPM package,
> actually) and the error messages don't give a clue why.

The current Xorg trunk version is much better in various areas including
fault-tolerance (like having junk in fonts.dir) ... I still have to get
the maintaince release 009.001 shipped and then push a 010 trunk build
out of the door... in general most of the Linuces already ship with a
working Xprt version (Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo etc.) or are planning to
ship one (like SuSE in the upcoming SuSE 9.2 release) ...

----

Bye,
Roland

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