[bug-gnuspool] gspl-prninstall: function key non-parsing, prereqs

[Karl Berry]

Hi John,

Hope you're doing well.

I attempted to make a minimal gnuspool installation, following the admin
manual.  Sorry for sending multiple issues in one msg, but it seemed
clearer somehow.

1) I got to the point of running gspl-ptrinstall, and let it try to
   "display existing printers", as the default suggests (not that there
   were any).  It complained "gnuspool is not running".  Perhaps the
   manual just needs to state "run gspl-start as root" (I guess) before
   the printer installation section.

2) so I ran gspl-start, and it complains about missing service names.
   Another prerequisite would help, in this case a forward reference to
   page 18 where the lines for /etc/services are listed.

3) ok, I added those, ran gspl-start again, and the process is running:
gnuspool 20764     1  0.0  0.0   268   8456 S      0 18:17:49 
/usr/local/gnu/spool-1.5/libexec/gnuspool/xtnetserv

    However, starting gspl-ptrinstall (or running lpr) still reports:
gspl-plist - GNUSpool is not running.

4) I continued on anyway to define a printer named "prn".  I was running
   in shell window inside Emacs, and the dialogue looked like this:
Printer to install or edit: prn
Invalid printer name  please try again
Printer to install or edit: 
   
   I traced this to the getline() function in gspl-ptrinstall.  If it
   receives more than one character, it looks for F1 and otherwise
   silently ignores the input.  Well, evidently Emacs is sending the
   string line-buffered (or something), since the getchar call received
   the whole string "prn".
   
   Personally, I think it would be cleaner to avoid (attempted)
   character-at-a-time input entirely.  It seems sufficient to recognize
   "?" as help, especially if the prompt included that info.

   In any event, when you get something you don't recognize, an
   error message is always good.

5) Finally, ptrinstall silently switches into curses mode for the
   printer list.  Had no clue I was supposed to suddenly start using
   arrow keys and stuff :).  A few words of explanation at the top of
   the list would be nice.  Or forget curses.

6) In general, I think it would be very helpful to have an introductory
   chapter, or a separate document, which spells out the minimal steps
   to get a local printer running.  I venture to speculate that is what
   most people trying out gnuspool want to do.  It could have references
   to all the details, but when you just want your printer to work in
   the first place, you don't care :).

Thanks,
Karl