1) Setting up the LaserWriter

By default, the LaserWriter is set up to communicate over Appletalk. This needs to change, since Mklinux only communicates to the printer as a serial connection. You can change the printer settings by doing the following:

* LaserWriter: This printer has a rotary four-position switch on the back panel. The settings are Appletalk, Special, 9600 and 1200. Move this switch to 9600.

* LaserWriter IINT: This printer has two DIP switches on the controller board near the serial ports. The settings are UP/UP for Appletalk, UP/DN for 9600 baud serial connection, DN/UP for emulation mode (for Diablo printing), DN/DN for 1200 baud serial. Set these DIP switches to UP/DN for 9600 baud serial communication.

* Other LaserWriters: Click on http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n24318 for other communications settings.

Connect power and a serial cable to the printer. A phone net adapter will not work, since it is only compatible with LocalTalk and not serial. Turn on the printer and boot into linux.

2) Installing lpr/lpd

Get the lpr rpm from either ftp.linuxppc.org or ftp.mklinux.apple.com and install it. For help on rpm, type 'man rpm' at a command prompt.

The next step is to configure your /etc/printcap file. I used the control-panel utility in X to do this easily. A generic postscript driver works for my printer.

There are those who think that you need to set the serial port speed, but I think (perhaps mistakenly) that it defaults to 9600 baud. The command to set the port speed is 'stty raw 9600 crtscts < /dev/cua1'. Check the man page on stty to find out what those options are.

3) Testing and Debugging

Send a page to the printer using commands like 'lpr filname.ps' or 'more filename | lpr' to test the printer. If this doesn't work, try just redirecting output to the port using a command like 'cat filename > /dev/cua1'. If this doesn't work, maybe someone else has a suggestion.

Known problems

There are a couple of problems I have encountered. First, long files (greater than a couple of pages) do not print because of an I/O error. My work around is to only print one page at a time. The other problem is that some postscript commands do not seem compatible with the old Laserwriter I own. Sigh.

If anyone has suggestions on how to fix the above problems, please update this FAQ and email me at toaster@shore.net.
toaster@shore.net