Printing woes.

[Dan Green <daniel_(_dot_)_green_(_at_)_ncf_(_dot_)_ca>]

Ahoy, folks.
	I've got a Brother MFC-8600 fax/copier/tooth flosser/printer that I'm trying
to get setup for lpd. It's supposedly compatible with an HP LaserJet IIp, but
I'm not too concerned about that at this point, 'cause I have a more serious
problem that being able to convert to PCL.

	When the machine first boots up, I can print. Once. After printing one
document (for example, by doing "lptest | lpr"), the printer stops responding.
Any subsequent attemps to print to the printer result in a 

lpt0: offline.

in the syslog/dmesg. What's especially perplexing is that the printer's LCD
informs me that it is receiving data, but doesn't appear to do anything with
it. This is, obviously, over the parallel port. I'm stumped as to what's going
on, but unforunately can't provide a dmesg output, because the machine is
elsewhere and not network-accessible right now. If anybody has any ideas or
has encountered this before, I'd much appreciate at least a place to start
looking.

	Another option is that the printer in question has a USB interface as well
as parallel. I wouldn't mind using USB, but the USB controller in the machine
is a Viatech, which doesn't appear to have any OpenBSD drivers. I think FreeBSD
has drivers for it. How difficult would it be to port this kind of driver?

-- 
Dan Green
"You are the essence of unconstrained coding goofiness."
 -- Andre Dalle, re: Dan Green