lp and lpr not working at all, nor batch printing pdfs

[bengilna]

Hi - ladies and gents, I REALLY need some help with this. Very noob, very over my head.

I originally was trying to figure out how to send a whole bunch of pdfs off to our networked printer. I posted it http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=75140 (probably in the wrong forum), but no response. Essentially, lp or lpr with multiple files didn't work.

I then attempted to solve the problem, made things worse. I uninstalled lpr and a variety of cups files, installed lprng and then realized I was way out of my depth, and now, finally, between prompts from Synaptic package manger and tinkering with apt-get, I THINK I am back to having something close to what i started... maybe.

Here's the deal now:

Firstly, I can print from inside other programs like Firefox, the pdf viewer, etc. Seems fine. However, no joy from command line.

I have a folder with 3 pdfs in it (as a test - its usually many more than that). I've cd'd to that location to make typing easier. Here's my session with trying to print one file, then all files.

...$ lpr file1.pdf
lpr: cannot open /var/spool/lpd/lp/.seq: Permission denied

...$ lpr *.pdf
lpr: cannot open /var/spool/lpd/lp/.seq: Permission denied

And then using the lp command:

...$ lp file1.pdf
request id is Lexmark-X945e-7 (1 file(s))

the printer is the right one, alright. The -7 at the end of it just indicates how often I have tried it, so I guess that's a job id. With this command, I get a small notification window in the upper left of the screen saying its sent off to the printer; the print manager window shows the file for a short time, then it disappears. No printing action (I can't see if there's anything happening on the printer screen at the time cause its down the hall, although there's no beeping or error messages waiting for me when I check). So, the data seems to go, and get lost.

...$ lp *.pdf
request id is Lexmark-X945e-10 (3 file(s))

This gets similar behavior to the above with file1.pdf, but the interesting thing is that although the filesize sent to the printer (as shown in the notification box and print manager window) is correct for all 3 files, I am told that only file1.pdf has gone - its just big enough for all 3 files. So, is something not really making a distinction between the files?

Then there's this:

...$ lpq
Warning: no daemon present
Rank Owner Job Files Total Size
1st ben 3 file1.pdf, file2.pdf 490527 bytes

This has been coming up for a few hours now, and that filesize is... bigger than expected. It may have been a job I tried to send from a previous installation of lpr... Makes me wonder if I now have multiple installations of various bits - how would I check and clean it? And where is lpd??

So, trying to get rid of it:

...$ lprm 3
lprm: lp: cannot chdir to spool directory

Finally,

...$ lpc status
lp:
queuing is enabled
printing is enabled
cannot examine spool directory

So. I'm stumped. (Lexmark customer support is silen)t. Any ideas?

B