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From: Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: unsuccessfully install of printer brother hl-l2360dw
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:57:35 -0300
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groenveld@acm.org (John D Groenveld) writes:

> In article <87wmei6gyl.fsf@example.com>,
> Salvador Mirzo  <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
>>I could never make this work, but I believe you're right.  Looking at my
>>printer settings (which I printed out using the printer's menu) I
>>see... On page 3/3, in network configuration, I see:
>>
>>  <Active services>          BRN3C2AF43F4D7C
>>                             BINARY_P1
>>                             TEXT_P1
>>                             POSTSCRIPT_P1
>>                             PCL_P1
>>                             BRN3C2AF43F4D7C_AT
>>
>>I've seen in the CUPS administration that a URL mentions BINARY_P1, so
>>it seems that CUPS was using this BINARY_P1 service.  Perhaps if I were
>>to change it to POSTSCRIPT_P1, it would then accept PostScript from the
>>network.
>
> Spew a little PostScript to it.
> ISTR ghostscript includes some samples or you can use enscript, a2ps
> and friends to generate some.

CUPS and the printer were installed from scratch using the IPP
``driver'' as you instructed me in this thread.  I used a2ps to
transform a text file into a PS one.  I sent the document to the printer
directly on port 9100 and I got out the PostScript code in plain text.

Then I changed the printer's CUPS configuration to use the LPD protocol
and I manually set the queue to POSTSCRIPT_P1, having chosen (as the
driver) the Brother HL-L2360D series from the list installed by the
/brsaler/ OpenBSD package.  Then I used CUPS's lpr to send the document
and I got out a nice looking PostScript document made by a2ps.  This
proves this printer indeed talks PostScript as you said.

Then I went to try two-sided-long-edge.  I began by trying to print with
programs such as evince (a GTK PDF viewer), qpdfview (a QT PDF viewer)
and Firefox (another GTK program) and I explicitly asked for
two-sided-long-edge always getting two-sided-short-edge.  I tried to ask
for one-sided and I got a one-sided print out.  In other words, things
behave almost as one would expect; the only problem being that
two-sided-long-edge always behaves like two-sided-short-edge.

I then tried CUPS's lpr on the command line---below.

>>But my experience with CUPS was not very good because I could never
>>print two-sided-long-edge.  It always printed two-sided-short-edge (or
>>one-sided).  Since I was able to make it always print
>>two-sided-long-edge by not using CUPS at all, I gave up on CUPS.
>
> OpenBSD's ipptool(1) claims your printer supports short and long edge.
> Try with cups-lpr(1)
> <URL:https://openprinting.github.io/cups/doc/man-lpr.html>
> | -o sides=two-sided-long-edge
> |     Prints on both sides of the paper for portrait output. 
> | -o sides=two-sided-short-edge
> |     Prints on both sides of the paper for landscape output. 

I used CUPS's lpr to print a two-page PostScript document in both
options.  They both came out two-sided-short-edge (that is, landscape).
I said:

$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=two-sided-long-edge manual.ps
$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=two-sided-short-edge manual.ps

I got two A4 papers out, both printed the same way,
two-sided-short-edge.  Finally, I said

$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=one-sided manual.ps

and two A4 papers out, one sided as expected.

I wonder if there's a mistake or something that can be done in the PPD
file of the printer.  On OpenBSD, the PPD file is installed at 

  /etc/cups/ppd/BRWB052162167A6.ppd

Here are lines 119--125:

*OpenUI *Duplex/2-Sided Printing: PickOne
*OrderDependency: 10 AnySetup *Duplex
*DefaultDuplex: None
*Duplex None/Off (1-Sided): "<</Duplex false>>setpagedevice"
*Duplex DuplexNoTumble/Long-Edge (Portrait): "<</Duplex true/Tumble false>>setpagedevice"
*Duplex DuplexTumble/Short-Edge (Landscape): "<</Duplex true/Tumble true>>setpagedevice"
*CloseUI: *Duplex

It looks right, but I wish I knew more about this file.  For instance,
if I could somehow set it to always do two-sided-long-edge, I'd be
nearly 100% happy.

My imagination says that these values in quotes are PostScript code.  I
then changed the one that says /Tumble true/ to /Tumble false/.  Like
this:

*Duplex DuplexNoTumble/Long-Edge (Portrait): "<</Duplex true/Tumble false>>setpagedevice"
*Duplex DuplexTumble/Short-Edge (Landscape): "<</Duplex true/Tumble false>>setpagedevice"

I restarted cupsd and said:

$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=one-sided manual.ps
$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=two-sided-long-edge manual.ps
$ /usr/local/bin/lpr -P BRWB052162167A6 -o sides=two-sided-short-edge manual.ps

The first came out one-sided, as expected; the next two came out
two-sided-short-edge.  Lol---my hack didn't work.

By the way, I also tried landscape with two-sided-short-edge (using
Firefox).  It comes out right: landscape two-sided-short-edge.

I'm out of ideas for now.  But I still think there's a way to solve this
because the printer is able to do PostScript; it can do two-sided
including both long and short edge.  My intuition says that what's going
on is simply a mistake somewhere.  I was very hopeful with my hack
above, but it made no difference.

Perhaps what I'm going to try next is to study a little bit of
PostScript to be able to write a document myself that's very simple and
that it instructs the printer directly to see if I can get
two-sided-long-edge.  My feeling is that these options in the PPD file
are used to know what PostScript code to include in the document.  Since
I don't see the code that the printer actually gets in the end, that's a
margin for confusion.

>>You already know I switched to OpenBSD in the process of debugging this.
>>FWIW, I was able to set up the printer to use IPP.  I was able to print
>>with it, but with the same two-sided-short-edge behavior as using the
>>LPD:// URL in CUPS.
>>
>>All in all, CUPS worked, but it turns out my life has been better with
>>just using /etc/printcap and lpr.
>>
>>I wanted to thank you for the help!  
>>
>>If I find anything new, I'll post again.
>
> If you get OpenBSD's cups to work, that will point to a bug in FreeBSD's.

At this point I don't think FreeBSD is at fault.

> BTW my WAG is OpenBSD's vmm supports FreeBSD guests if you want test
> FreeBSD without dual booting:
> <URL:https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq16.html#StartVm>

Not for testing CUPS at the moment, since OpenBSD is behaving exactly as
FreeBSD did.  (For everything else, I have a headless FreeBSD server,
but no printer attached to it.)

Thanks very much for the help!