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On Sat, 15 Mar 2008, baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008, Sindi wrote:
>
> > > My gs does not support x11 as a device.  This keeps it smaller.  It
> > > only needs the one binary (2.7MB with a few devices including those
> > > needed by svp pdf viewer, a few printers, ps2pdf; 2.9 with default
> > > devices) and minimal fonts (not the 2-3GB package unless you want to
> > > print with a variety of fonts).  The Windows gs is 17MB download.  I
> > > did not compile in Chinese support.  GS8.60 is about twice the size.  I
> > > have not needed it. The Slackware 7 gs does not support some newer pdf
> > > formats.
> >
> > Not sure what "gs does not support x11 as a device" means. Does that
> > mean you can't print from any program that runs under X? That would be a
> > serious limitation for me. Please clarify so that I'll know whether your
> > package might work for me. (btw, I think you meant 2-3MB rather than
> > 2-3GB, correct?)
>
> I'm going to hold off on printing experiments until I hear back form you
> with some clarifications. I can run as root most of the time, though in
> case I ever need to print a web page I suppose user would need to be able
> to print as well. Please let me know what sort of permissions problems
> you've run into in trying to set up non-priviledged users and how it has
> affected printing and other aspects of system operation.

The Answer Gang and I had a long emailed discussion of the problem.  I 
don't think I ever did get lpr running for 'root' but I don't need it 
since I can use gs directly instead to print the ps files generated by 
Abiword and Opera.  Both root and user can use gs directly.

> Another reason I wanted to hold off before experimenting is that I looked
> at your downloads page and there are several different gs packages there:

8.54 is what I use.  If you only need ljet4 use the smallest of these, not 
the default.  You probably don't need to print jbig2, which is some 
special format used to compress images smaller, that people sometimes send 
me to translate.

gs-8.54-HP-noX  (not the defaultdevs or jbig2 versions).
I included in my package ps2pdf and pdf2ps and files which they need, and 
a bit of documentation.

http://keesan.freeshell.org/gs/gs854-noX-HP.gz  (see my blfiles.htm for a 
list of the gs's and what they support).


I compiled 8.50 without svgalib support.  svp is really handy and much 
faster than xpdf or gs with a frontend.  You can also use bmv.

 > I wasn't sure which might be best for the sort of setup I'll be
> attempting. By the way, you've got a great resource in that page--thanks
> for providing it. It's getting a bit long to be a single page and could
> perhaps be more usable if divided into separate pages. But it's very
> helpful even in its present form. (On a side note, I noticed an html error
> you might want to fix: it seems that in your zgv section you've left out
> an angle bracket for an href tag--should be obvious once you take a look
> at the page using a browser.)

I looked and also found a few other goofs - thanks for any corrections. 
Please feel free to copy over everything that I have posted to your own 
site and reorganize it.  Christof already greatly improved it by adding 
html links.

> Thanks for the input.
>
> James

Thanks for all the help you have given me and others.
Sindi