Compiling LRP-NG

1. Turn off CUPS and disable it.
   systemctl list-units | grep cups
systemctl stop cups.service
systemctl disable cups.service
   If you're running without systemd, a different procedure is needed.

2. Download and unpack LPRng-3.8.28.tgz from www.lprng.com.
   tar -xzvf LPRng-3.8.28.tgz

3. configure --disable-werror
   This step is needed because the new compiler is more finicky than before and flags bad code formatting and formerly common practices as errors.

4. Edit Makefile and remove the quotation marks in line 48 so it says
   SHELL=/bin/sh
   
   If you miss this step, it bombs out saying:

   LPRng-3.8.35$ make
   if [ "UTILS" != po -o "yes" != "no" ] ; then \
   	cd UTILS; make localedir=/usr/local/share/locale \
   		DESTDIR= all ; \
   fi
   make: "/bin/sh": Command not found
   make: *** [Makefile:123: UTILS] Error 127
   

5. Type make
   It will run for a while, then bomb out at the link stage with many lines like this:
   LPRng-3.8.35/libtool: 1: eval: libtool_args+=: not found
LPRng-3.8.35/libtool: 1: eval: compile_command+=: not found
LPRng-3.8.35/libtool: 1: eval: finalize_command+=: not found


   This is caused by the fact that /bin/sh is now a link to /bin/dash, which interferes with libtool. The solution is to rename the link and set a new link to /usr/bin/bash. This is a very risky thing to do: DO NOT log out of your terminal window until the new link is made or your OS will become inoperable.

   Complicating matters is that if you set /bin/sh to /usr/bin/bash before starting, LPRng won't compile at all. You will get an entirely different set of compilation errors. So here's what you do.
   su
cd /bin
mv sh sh.bak   <---DON'T LOG OUT OF ROOT AFTER THIS STEP!
   ln -s /usr/bin/bash sh
ls -l sh
   It should be pointing to /usr/bin/bash. If not, type mv sh.bak sh and get advice.
   exit
make clean
make
ls -lart src
   It should show lpr, lprm, lpc, etc.
   

   Now change /bin/sh back to dash
su
cd /bin
mv sh sh.old    <---DO NOT TAKE A COFFEE BREAK AFTER THIS STEP!
   ln -s /bin/dash sh
ls -l sh
   Make sure it points to /bin/dash before continuing.
   exit
   

   Now you can type make install as usual. It puts a sample printcap in /etc and the two config files lpd.conf and lpd.perms in /etc/lpd. It also creates a sample lpd script that goes in /etc/init.d that can be used to start and stop the lpd daemon safely.

Configure those files and you should be able to print to any PDF printer, no fancy drivers needed.

What we need for situations like this is for ln to be able to change a soft link without deleting it. Or, maybe what we really need is for people to stop improving things that used to work perfectly.