CUPS vs. apsfilter--newbie setup problems

[Jesse Sheidlower]

I'm trying to get my 4.8-running laptop hooked up to
some printers, and I'm having trouble getting it configured
with either CUPS or apsfilter (as someone here had recommended).
I've tried to look over the docs, and search through here, but
am still stumped for what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm also not clear on why these systems don't interoperate, or,
rather, why an entry in /etc/printcap generated from apsfilter
doesn't show up in CUPS. It would be nice if you could use 
these together.

First, I was able to configure printing on a local USB printer
with each system, though apsfilter has a vastly greater number
of drivers available. Is there a way to get CUPS to read these
drivers, or to separately install ones that it can handle?

I'm not able to get either one to work with a networked printer.
With CUPS, I can get it to the point where I can print a test
page, by choosing the device "AppSocket/HP Jet Direct" (though
it's not a Jet Direct printer, just a regular TCP/IP interface) and
using a device URI of socket://1.2.3.4:9100/ , but I
can't get anything else to print on this printer. I wasn't able
to get it to print even a test page by using any lpd combination
I could come up with.

With apsfilter, I can't get it set up at all; anything I try
gives "lpr: unable to print file: client-error-not-found"
when I try to do a test page.

Assuming I ever do manage to get this configured, is there a
way to choose printers from within apps? In Mozilla, even with
several (dummy) printers entered, the only option for "Printer"
is PostScript/Default, and from, say, Emacs, there's just the
various print options. Do I have to choose this from the 
command line outside of the apps?

Thanks very much.

Jesse Sheidlower