[cups.general] remote queues

[marc at arctic.net]

my apologies if this has already been posted.

We set up remote linux printers per
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040101194202284
an HP 1200 and 1300. The 1200 is connected via USB to a small
jetdirect that does not apparentl;y support ipp (but does
suppport http) and the 1300 has a jetdirect that plugs into
the back of the printer and also apparently does not support
ipp but does support http.

We set up local queues on Mac OS 10.3 hosts via cups
(localhost:631) We created these as raw queues pointing at
ipp://serverhost/printers/printername:631

we can go to localhost:631 and identify the local printer and
click to print a test page and the page prints without a flaw.
Apps were printing from the hosts but now mysteriously jobs
from apps on the host seem to spool locally, get sent to the
remote printer server which show that the jobs have been
processed,  but nothing is coming out of the printers.....

We have a Mac lab in a public school and we tried to look at
this kind of solution because even the smallest rpint jobs
were taking half and hour to complete (the best performance
was to print to the hp raw socket, but even that was taking
seemingly forever.

There are now so many different variables and we are so
confused as to exactly what is happening as far as the print
stream that we are for all we know going in circles, and this
latest bit where the test page prints from the local queue but
nothing from any app seems to confirm that we are lost in
never never land.....

Is the Mac OS actually converting all print streams to
postscript? Are we re-processing the printstream 3 or 4 times?
How does the seelction of printers interface with the
behaviuor of the apps? We have spent a good deal of time
trying to make sense of all this, and while the cups end seems
manageable and we have no major problems printing from linux
boxes, the Mac stuff is killing us ;=}

We simply can't figure out why a 1 page appleworks document
would take 30 minutes to print and with all the possible
issues (printer RAM, USB issues, Application printer
interface, foomatic issues, OS issues, etc ) we are not making
much progress.

Any and all assistannce welcome.