Network printer - use remote driver?
 

Hello, I set up a printer that can be accessed on a network. My printer is a HP DeskJet 882C (detected as 880C) connected to an Ubuntu 10.04 desktop. I am able to print on it from my laptop running Ubuntu 8.04. I would like to print using the driver on the desktop machine. Going to http://{remotemachine}:631 I see the driver is hpcups 3.9.12. When printing directly from this computer, this driver is definitely used.

When printing from the laptop, the Hardy driver is used. Is it possible just to use the remote driver instead? Thanks in advance.

(The hp ijs drivers that come with Hardy are useless for this printer. I need to be able to print oversized A4 pdf's which Hardy doesn't do well at all (the page is shrunk way too small, and is off-centered to the lower-left). Not to mention every 8-10 pages the printer spits out gibberish and I need to switch off the printer manually.)

If you got a ppd file of hpcups 3.9.12 you should be able to print from your laptop without the hardy drivers. In most cases the ppd files are placed in /usr/share/cups/model/

If you haven't got this ppd file, just take a look at the link below. There are also more recent versions of the drivers.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hplip/files/

Download the driver you wish to install (for example the tar.gz file) and open it with your favourite archive manager. extract the ppd file judging on the model names shown in the ppd directory. In this directory there are also tar.gz files. When opening these the ppd file itself is there. Copying it to the /usr/share/cups/model directory will give you the next option:

Add a new printer at localhost:631 and in stead of selecting the model, click 'providing ppd file:' and browse the file in /usr/share/cups/model. Now the new driver will be applied. If it works, you may delete the other less functional printer of course.

Succes.

Delete the printer setup you currently have in Hardy.
Reinstall the printer that is connected to 10.04, but when you get to the "Driver choice/Printer type" bit, set the "Printer type" as "Raw". Then cups on 10.04 will handle the driver.

Note I am assuming that you have set up cups on 10.04 to share the printer to machines on your LAN, and that you are not making a direct connection Hardy--->Router---->Printer
The connection needs to go like this:
Hardy--> Router--> 10.04(cups server)--> Router--> Printer
or
Hardy--> Router--> 10.04(cups server)-->Printer Cable-->Printer

Hardy should be seeing the printer as something like this ipp://10.04Server:631/printers/HPDeskJet880C

Thank you for the replies.

Laurens73: I think it will take more than a ppd file to make this work. I am not aware of whether this printer is a PostScript printer; I am guessing that it is not. The hpcups drivers are of course intertwined closely with the CUPS backend. Ubuntu Hardy is using an ancient version of CUPS that is "impossible" to update or replace. So replacing the ppd file won't actually change the backend/driver because the old version of CUPS is still there.

tredegar: The laptop can detect the printer as ipp://10.04Server:631/printers/HPDeskJet880C but I'm not having luck setting this up as raw. There isn't any place to specify the driver until after the printer is set up. The device is detected as a "Remote Printer," and I can change the driver to Generic, Raw Queue, but the changes are not saved. When I click Apply, it is still detected as "Remote Printer." When I try changing the driver again, it is still detected as HP DeskJet 880C.

I am still running 8.04 (Hardy) on a laptop.
When setting up the printer, the Raw option is on the "Select Printer type" page.
I think you need to be root to make changes stick.

If this fails, maybe it's time for an update. Setting up my remote printer with 10.04 as the client was really easy.

Indeed it could be so that you need to install lpr and cups-wrapper to make the ppd files work in cups itself. It is certainly no postscript protocol when using a ppd file. Setting the printer as RAW as tredegar suggests would be a lot faster and easier to get the printer working. At least you got more than one option now.