making hp laserjet 1020 work in suse 10.1
 

i bought a hp laserjet 1020 which is not yet working. i tried this receipt first, which worked well until the part - i get no reaction from the printer at all.

next try with this one: when i choose the device, yast offers me to test it. the response is positive and yast tells me that the printer has to react somehow, the lights blinking at the least. that does not happen. unfortunately, i don't understand the part with the script, how do i do that!? may that come in conflict with my external harddisc if i mess it up?

i would be very grateful for any help! :)

best regards
ungua

edit: also continuing with the "printers for dummies"-receipts above won't change my printer's "i don't do anything"-attitude.

I recently installed an HP 1018 printer on a SUSE 10.2 box. The HP 1018 uses the same ZjStream protocol as the 1020. I followed the advice given by the person who developed these drivers: http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/ and everything worked fine. Remember to compile the file correctly and follow the instructions exactly. For example, the driver for each printer is slightly different, so you need to use the ./getweb 1020 command as part of the process to tailor the driver to your 1020 printer.

i found that through google, too, but thought it was related to the first of the receipts i tried. i will go through that in the coming days, whenever i get the time. thank you for your link! :)

best regards
ungua

unfortunately, it didn't work. i am in contact with hp support now, they recommended this one:
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/downloads.html

but how do i run a file that ends on ".run"? when i log in as root, the file is opened with kwrite, the other option is kate. "actions" contains nothing that makes sense either. typing this file name in a terminal won't result in anything either.

best regards
ungua

p.s.: in "run command" i get the message: "no hp all-in-one device found". what could that mean!?

This is a shell program, meant to be executed from a command line. Open a terminal window (such as KTerminal), navigate to the directory where you saved the file and then enter:
sh hplip-1.7.1.run

thank you very much for your advice! i haven't come so far yet, adding
http://suse.mirrors.tds.net/pub/open...1/inst-source/
http://mirrors.kernel.org/suse/i386/...x10.1-GM-Extra
to my installation sources in yast2 is >2h ago, the window is still showing the mouse with a clock and nothing happened yet. how do i close such a window without a restart? is there an equivalent to ctrl-alt-del in linux? :)

thank you & best regards
ungua

edit: now it finally could be closed. unfortunately, the device seems to be damaged: running "installation sources" now results in a comment "source damaged - use it anyway?" and afterwards nothing is displayed in the table. still, the mouse has the waiting-clock-form. "yast2@dhcppc2", the installation source window, cannot be closed again. so i'm waiting. this really disturbs the work i have to get done today... :(

edit 2: live-news :) i ran the binary again right after the last entry at 12:09 am. it has just stopped (13:27) with the following message: what can i do about that error? i never thought this might be so complicated. it's only a printer...

Have you ever installed programs from source before? If not, I suspect that is your problem. Programs that run from scripts often need to compile (convert from the human-readable version to the binary version) on your machine. If you are not set up to do this, the system will report all sorts of errors--some very hard to decipher. To get around this, use YaST to install the following packages in SUSE:

kernel-source, binutils, gcc, gcc-c++, glibc-devel, make

Once these are installed, everything should work properly.

Incidentally, the ability to use source code is one of the advantages of Linux (believe it or not). The alternative is to wait until someone compiles things for you and puts them into the repository. Once that happens, the printer will install like any other. The disadvantage is that you may have to wait a couple months for that to happen. Much better to go ahead and compile things on your own. :)

thank you very much for another enlightening answer! :) i do believe that this opportunity is a giant advantage for linux. my problem is just that i lack the time to really sit down and study those things. even after 2½ years with 3 versions of suse i consider myself a newbie. but linuxquestions usually is the right place to ask. :)

best regards from norway
ungua

edit: all these programs are already installed, so i'll try the binary again.

Yes, try Ctrl-Alt-Esc. Your cursor should turn into a skull and crossbones. Move it over the window of the application you wish to kill and click the left mouse button. If you change your mind, click the right mouse button and the skull and crossbones will disappear without killing any applications.

You are welcome. Sorry that things do not seem to be working out. You might also try carefully stepping through the instructions on the page I cited with my first post. It worked for me the first time I tried, so it should be worth another look. Good luck in any case. :)

a little update: i have been very busy over the last days and had no time trying to fix the printer. unfortunately, my windows-partition destroyed itself (first message, automatic shutdown with next start). i need windows to run spss, among others. when i first have to set up windows again, i will also try another linux distro. kubuntu, fedora and absolute linux are downloaded and ready to be used, i am just waiting for some spare time... :)

best regards
ungua

it works!! :) :) :) :)

now it doesn't work again... how shall i understand that!?!? checking yast, i got this error message. there is also another hp laserjet 1020 registered as "not configured". where does that one come from? does this imply that i always have to have the printer turned on when my notebook is running? or will a restart mess it up again, too? i had the printer working like it should be before... it simply doesn't make sense. and it put me in a very bad situation now... :( have to spend an hour to get to university and print out what i need to have with me right now... [windows doesn't work anymore, shuts down itself with "services.exe" all the time after i went online with it.]

regards
ungua

The Linux driver usually works, but not necessarily always. If you change something (like updating CUPS), you may need to recompile and reinstall the driver.

i didn't change anything. there wasn't even a restart between the working driver yesterday and the my time-crushing desaster this morning. i see that the screenshot has not been uploaded, there appears to be a problem with my provider. the message says:
i tried to restart cups as it is noted in the last part of your link, this did not work. than i had to leave... so there's a possibility that i'll have to recompile it everytime i use my printer, unless i always leave it turned on!?

regards
ungua

Well, if you did not update anything, my guess was not correct. Once the driver works, it should keep working. Therefore, I do not know what the problem may be. :(