[BBLISA] Sharing PPD files to Mac OSX clients via cups/avahi

[Nick Cammorato]

I'm hoping there are enough people with enough Macs on this list that 
maybe someone knows the answer to this.  I've run into a weird problem 
trying to transition from an OSX 10.7 server machine as the print server 
in a primarily mac environment over to a linux print server.   The linux 
server is running Avahi 0.6.31, cups 1.6.1, cups-filters 1.0.25, and 
ghostscript 9.06, although going to earlier versions the same behavior is 
evident.  Switching between centos with custom RPMs and fedora core or 
ubuntu with included packages also doesn't seem to affect it.  I 
personally prefer RHEL(and thus CentOS), but I'm not exactly wedded to it.

When adding the printer via bonjour, on the OSX server, the printer shows 
up as the type "bonjour shared", on the linux server it shows up as just 
bonjour.  The service advertisements show up as the same with an 
avahi-browse though.  When you go to add it, it sends an IPP request to 
the OSX server, which retrieves the PPD at server/printers/Printer.ppd and 
installs it locally, but it doesn't even attempt this on any of the linux 
alternatives.  Dumping the traffic off my laptop shows no immediately 
appreciable difference between the two bonjour announcements that I can 
detect, and the main difference appears to be that it doesn't even try to 
do the ipp get on the linux server.

Printing works fine, heck, airprint works fine, but without retrieving 
that ppd, the printer options(IE: extra trays) are never set and the 
drivers have to be installed locally if they aren't included.  You can, 
however, retrieve the ppd manually in a browser, install it manually, and 
it all works.  Installing all the printers is somehow not an acceptable 
solution though.

I'm stumped.  Anyone have any ideas?
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