Printing in Slack 10.2 over parallel port

rodm13 · 10-25-2005, 11:29 PM

SOLVED!

I have been trying for about 2 weeks to get this to work; at first it didn't seem as difficult as it does now. What I have is an old, HP LaserJet Series II that connects via parallel to the motherboard and a CUPS server that assures me that it prints every job it sends it. The only problem is that the printer never seems to get any notification from the PC! I am currently using the GIMP-Print driver that came standard with CUPS for the LaserJet Series II, and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

Printer - HP LaserJet series II
Driver - "HP LaserJet II series - CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.7"
Kernel - 2.6.13.4 (Self compiled)
CUPS version - cups-1.1.23
GIMP-print version - gimp-print-4.2.7

If you need any other info, just ask. I'm not new to linux, so don't worry about simplicity, just please help me get this working!

Thanks, RodSOLVED

steve1972 · 10-31-2005, 01:36 PM

What does your error_log say?

maroonbaboon · 10-31-2005, 03:19 PM

I would start off by bypassing CUPS and trying to print direct to the parallel port. Simplest thing is to just run command 'echo hello > /dev/lp0' and see what happens. If this is a Postscript printer you can just send a Postscript file 'cat somefile.ps > /dev/lp0'.

Two common problems are 1. driver modules not loaded (check for lp, parport and parport_pc in output of 'lsmod') or 2. parallel port BIOS settings somehow incompatible with printer.

rodm13 · 11-01-2005, 01:22 AM

After much work and painstaking configuration, I finally found out the error. The Gimp Print Driver was, for some reason, configured to send raster to the printer at 600 DPI, when the printer in question didn't have sufficient memory for the print job (default memory in this baby is 384K). Also, for some reason, the printer doesn't report "memory full" errors, not sure about that one, but it prints just fine at 150 DPI. Now the only thing I have to worry about is that I think the roller is bad, so -$70 or so for a new toner cartridge... and we should be back in business.

Thanks for the help, the direct printing trick saved me so much time in testing various setups.

All of your help was much appreciated, now time to mark this post solved...

regular · 11-16-2005, 03:45 AM

How does Postscript printer understand that it's a ps file, if you just write cat somefile.ps > /dev/lp0?
Doesn't it need some kind of notification before like "hey, the coming file is a ps file"?

maroonbaboon · 11-16-2005, 03:46 PM

Postscript files are just text, and start with a line like

%!PS-Adobe-2.0

So the printer knows that postscript on the way.