I have searched this site over for help getting a local printer to work but I'm having a tough time with a couple of things. I have an HP 722c running through parallel port. I've enabled parallel port under modules. I've also installed cups and apsfilter.

1. How do I check to see if the printer driver is already in the kernal or module?

I know how to install the appropriate driver, if it isn't already installed, but after that, I need help setting up the printer daemon. I've only used suse where yast does it for you. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

For myself I have only worked with CUPS and the old LPR printing systems. But to start CUPS you would usually use the command

/etc/rc.d/rc.cups start

after that try to load the following page using your browser

http://localhost:631

The port number here is very important to reach to CUPS daemon.

The kernel and modules can only provide support for the parallel port. The printer attached is up to your printing system in use.

CUPS has excellent documentation in html and pdf formats located in

/usr/doc/cups/documentation.html

Good luck!

OKay I"m retarded. I don't have cups installed. Pkgtool won't load. ANy other ideas?

If you are running console mode only and want to use apsfilter then it is better NOT to install CUPS. CUPS replaces the standard lpd printing system with its own special versions that work with it. It strips the contents of the /etc/printcap file. I would think that fairly well disables apsfilter.

If you are able to run the X server and a window manager then I do not understand why pkgtool wouldn't load. I think pkgtool is a required program in Slack. It is a console mode program. It can be run in a console screen while running X if you like.

If I recall correctly the HP 7xxC printers are all Win printers and require a special driver programs from HP to make them work. You could very well be sending print info to it now, but the printer would just ignore it. Apsfilter depends on ghostscript to do the final conversion to acceptable printer format. I just reviewed the list of supported printer by CUPS and the 7xx series is completely skipped. They do list a driver called "HP New Deskjet Series" but I do not know what printers it was designed to support. I am using CUPS version 1.1.15. If CUPS doesn't support the printer then I do not think any other program under Linux will either.

Perhaps somebody else here has been able to get the HP 7xxC printer working. You may try doing a search on the printer model and see if any old threads have had any success. I believe the search also reviews the hardware forum as well for results. You might consider obtaining a different printer for Linux though.

I've gotten it to work with Suse--so I know it's possible for it to work. I just have to foigure out how.

Pkgtool loads, but whenever I try to tell it to look on the slackware disk for more packages, it just quits. I can't figure out how to get it to open the cd to look for more packages.

Try going to the directory first, then run pkgtool. Select current directory. And the packages should be displayed. Otherwise I think you have to specify the complete directory path to the package you wish to install. It seems easier to just go there to start with for me anyhow.

Do you still have the SuSe system available to inspect how it is setup and what drivers are in use for the HP 7xxC printer? Do you remember if SuSe used CUPS for the printer management or other software package? Maybe it was a driver by a different name, like just "HP Deskjet."

ok, i jhope you didnt install cups yet, i'm gonna try to help you get your printer to work with LPD only.
First check if printer is responding and detected. Send a normal ASCII text file to it like this:
cat somefile > /dev/lp0
If it prints ok, if not you'll have to recompile your kernel to get parellel printer support.
If it printed, cd to /usr/share/apsfilter and run ./SETUP
Follow the instructions, and choose the driver for your printer, if none is there for your specific printer, do trial and error, until you find a driver that works best, then Install the printer by typing "i" at the main APSfilter menu.
Ok, now quit, and read the info if you want.
Once your out, check if printer is working now.
type:
lpr -P NAME-YOU-GAVE-TO-YOUR-PRINTER somefile
For example, i would do
lpr -P Epson Homework.doc
where Epson is the name of my printer and Homework.doc is the document to be printed.
If it works, congrats! If not... i dunno, post the error (if any) that appears
Hope that helps!
-NSKL

It didn't print so I guess I need to recompile the kernel. This scares me to death cause I have no idea how to do it without messing anything up. Granted, I could always do a fresh install and start over, but I'd like to learn how to recompile for knowledge sake.

Read the kernel HOW-TO on tldp. Slack makes installing new kernel easy, unlike some distros that have libraries and things all over the place and recompiling the kernel is almost impossible....

Also there are a couple of BIG threads about this on LQ just search the forums.

Good Luck

-NSKL

EDIT: Or you can use modules, which is considerably easier, but i don't know what modules you need to load, hopefully someone else will know...

i already selected parallel support to load in modules. I tried to enable parallel printing but when I rebooted, my network card didn't work. Did I do something wrong? This is what my modules look like:

#### PC parallel port support ###
if cat /proc/ksyms | grep "\[parport_pc\]" 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; then
echo "parport0 is built-in, not loading module" > /dev/null
else
if [ -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/parport_pc.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/parport_pc.o.gz \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc.o.gz ]; then
# Generic setup example:
/sbin/modprobe parport_pc
# Hardware specific setup example (required for PLIP and better
#performance in general):
#/sbin/modprobe parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7
fi
fi

#### Parallel printer support ###
if cat /proc/ksyms | grep "\[lp\]" 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; then
echo "lp support built-in, not loading module" > /dev/null
else
if [ -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/lp.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/lp.o.gz \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/char/lp.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/char/lp.o.gz ]; then
/sbin/modprobe lp
fi
fi

You can use the command "lsmod" to list the loaded modules. To see if the modules lp, parport_pc, and parport were loaded or not. If it creates a problem if the network card you could try using the "irq=none" as an option to the parport_pc load command.

To test without rebooting type in the following if they are not loaded.

modprobe parport_pc irq=none
modprobe lp

This should provide three new modules in the modules list. If you need to remove a module then use the command

rmmod module_name

The only reason I can think of for the printer support to stop a net card would be the interrupt is set to be the same. The printer port generally would be assigned to irq 7. By disabling the irq request line on the printer support it should not cause a problem with the net card if it using 7. If the module insists on a specified IO port, try io=0x378 first, then io=0x278.