CUPS, hpijs, and an Apollo P-2200
 

I debated upon whether to post this here or in hardware, but I thought this was more of a software question.

I have an HP Apollo P-2200 printer that I'd like to be able to print with using the CUPS native to Slackware 10.0. According to this page linuxprinting.org
my printer is fully supported and I can use HP DeskJet 612C as the identification driver, since there is nothing specifically about my printer.

So, I go to the hpijs site, download the 1.6 package and install it. Everything installs fine.

Then I configure cups and try to print a test page. I get a string of gibberish that runs across the top of one page, then 10 more blank ones cycle out.

Then I try again, the job print head unparks and moves around a little, but then the job is aborted according to the queue. I try another, and it too is aborted.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Anybody have any clues?

http://localhost:631

Did you use this to configure your printer?

Yes, sorry I forgot to mention that.

After reading this article, thanks to Slashdot, I learned that I needed to uncommnet the parallel support in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.

So I tried cups again and at least this time the test page aborts before printing out garbage.

I really would appreciate help, because, you know, being able to use my printer would be amazing.

Not knowing anything regarding this particular printer, I can only speak in general terms.

It sounds to me like you are using the wrong driver. I am aware that this is the recomended driver, but have you tried any of the other drivers mentioned? Now that you have the parallel port drivers (parport_pc, parport) loaded you should try some of these other suggested drivers again.

HP Deskjet 612C Foomatic/hpijs

This is listed as a selection in the CUPS admin page(localhost:631). Have you tried this driver?

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

I did want to add one more thing to try. Once you have set up the printer from 631, if you are in KDE, open the control panel, go to peripherals, printer. You should see your printer there. Check the tab at the bottom of the screen that says "print system currently used" and make sure it says CUPS. Mine has always been LPR or Generic by default in Slack and printing won't work till I set it to CUPS. There are other things to explore here as well.

HTH