Printer setup utiity cannot find ppd for HP Laserjet P1006 (SOLVED:THANK YOU)
I have used the HP setup utility recently with 3 other Linux OS's & they all worked ootb.
However, in the case of SW13 the interface is different & lacks the ability to download the driver plugin & firmware required for this printer. Opensource.com says that this printer is supported for SW9.1 to 12.1 but I'm not sure that categorically means 13 is not supported. It may just be that the support page needs updating. The utility interface, in the case of SW13, only gives the option to browse the local cups database which I already know does not include this printer or ppd. The utiliy tries to use an old algorithm but no appropriate ppd is found. Any help would be appreciated on this problem. |
Have you tried setting up the printer using CUPS? Enter "http://localhost:631/" in a web browser.
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As I said in my initial post this early model HP printer is not included in the CUPS database & therefore it needs to be activated via the HPLIP interface, which in the case of SW13 is not the same as the one in other distributions i.e., it lacks the option to download the driver plugin & firmware required for its operation.
Can they be obtained by other means?. Thanks again. |
Open a web browser and enter localhost:631 ... the driver for your
printer is already in the CUPS interface in Slackware 13.0. Since I'm looking at it I'll provide you a screenshot. If that printer were NOT in the database already, you would browse The Linux Foundation's printer database and find it there. If you have a PPD file you'd like to use, then the CUPS interface will allow you to browse and use it instead (see screenshot). If the HPLIP interface in Slackware 13.0 "lacks the option to download the driver plugin & firmware required for its operation" then you may need to get the source and rebuild it properly. That's what we come to know as a "Slackware feature". |
In order to make HP Laserjet P1005 (my printer model) I had to uninstall both HPLIP and system-config-printer. Then I configured it with CUPS. Which driver are you using? You should use the same driver as P1005 model. You will find the driver here: http://foo2xqx.rkkda.com/
Take a look at http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/forum/read.php?42,1688,1688 and see if it is of any further help to you. Regards |
Thanks all for your inputs.
Unfortunately I have two problems now. Firstly localhost does not respond to give me the cups database. Tried reinstalling it with slackpkg but that didn't work. Secondly, I tried the hplip automatic/custom install procedure @ hplipopensource.com and that process supports 14 distros but slackware is not one of them. So, does anyone know commands for SW13 that would work for the hplip install (hplip-3.10.6.run). I'm also thinking that cups needs to work as a backend with hplip to have success, but as I said it's not working. BTW: I have uninstalled the old 3.9 version of hplip that comes with the distro as it doesn't have the complete GUI interface of 3.10.6. Thanks for any further help |
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http://localhost:613/ Quote:
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mingdao@silas64:~$ cat /etc/slackware-version Quote:
to read and find out what to do in that case. Slackware has a working CUPS and a working HPLIP that work with your printer model. So why not first use them and install as has been suggested before; then if the software provided does not work, you can investigate what you need to do to properly install and use later versions. Usually, but not always, you could changed the SlackBuild(s) that come with the stock Slackware, get the new source, and rebuild and upgrade the packages. Or, as I do for mutt and others, build a new package with your own SlackBuild and install it. I'm not saying that CUPS and/or HPLIP do not work on Slackware 13.0. My box is running Slackware64 13.0, and they work fine on it. They also display your printer model as a choice. It could be that one or both of them don't work on Slackware 13.0; as SCIM works on Slackware 13.1, but not on Slackware64 13.1. My advice is to FIRST try the apps that come with Slackware. |
Thanks very much for all your contributions to my printing problems.
The other distros I've tried didn't have the P1006 in their Cups database so I used hplip successfully in those cases. However, because I can't get cups to work with localhost:631 I am surprised that your screenshot shows it is indeed there. Must be a different version of cups. As a noob, and coming from Windoze, I'm quite proud of myself that I have got this far with slackware given that it doesn't hand feed you as some other Linux distros with a click & go approach that appeals to many computer users. Everything else is working fine and it just needs the printer to work and I am a Slackware convert. These are some outputs relative to the problem. l Quote:
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Some help on the cups problem will be appreciated. |
You didn't post your HPLIP version, nor what your error is when
you open a web browser and try to launch "localhost:631" But ... I suspect something from your output above. Are you logged into X as root? If so, that might be your problem. |
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Tried as user but still no cups GUI. |
What is the output of "ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc.cups"
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bash-3.1# ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc.cups
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4318 2009-08-22 12:21 /etc/rc.d/rc.cups |
There's your problem ... the cups server is not executable.
Issue "chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.cups" as root and then "/etc/rc.d/rc.cups start" and hopefully you'll be good to go. Let's get CUPS working, then you can try your printer with the driver provided. If it's not acceptable, we'll go further. |
Voila! It works. I'm tickled pink. What great support you have all given me.
To Bruce Hill & all others who provided their advice & knowledge on this problem THANK YOU! As a 72yo Slackware has been a somewhat steep learning curve for me but thankfully I'm retired and was able to spend some time learning its peculiarities. I'm looking forward to working with SW and I'll certainly be keeping it as one of my two favorite distributions (Fedora). Thanks again guys. |
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