Making HP LaserJet 4L work with CUPS on Slackware 11.0
 

I'm trying to get a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4L to work on a headless server connected to parallel port running Slackware 11.0 using CUPS. I use ssh for configuring stuff there.

Since I wasn't sure how to add printers in console, I used lynx to go to http://localhost:631/. I added a printer:

Name: HPLJ4L
Location: SERVER (SERVER is the hostname of the computer, redirects to 192.168.1.2)
Description: Standard black and white A4 laser printer

Then I got to choose the device which was Parallel Port #1 (Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4L), model/driver which was HP and model where I selected HP LaserJet 4L Foomatic/hpijs (en).

It said printer was set up correcty.

When I try to print however, the printer's light blinks once and after that it's all, print job gets listed as aborted.

There doesn't seem to be anything abormal in the logs:

HP LaserJet 4L - CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.7 (en) was also available in the model selection and as I found out, that's what my other computer was using when the printer worked there set up with KDE's wizards. When this is selected however, the printer's lights don't even blink and nothing happens at all. The "No pages found" errors in the log
are probably from the times I tried to use the Gimp-print model.

Any ideas?

I use HP LaserJet 4 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.0 as the driver for my HP laserjet 4. the package for debian is cupsys-driver-gutenprint

This driver supports the entire HP Laserjet 4 family.. it's worth a shot you've tried the other options.
http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/p_..._Printers.php3
gutenprint 5 is the new replacement for gimp-print 4.x

Well I finally figured out how to change the ppd files for the printer but still no gain, not even with your suggested drivers. Some drivers do absolutely nothing, some blink the lights and a few print some random text. I think the problem is somewhere else, but I'm not sure.

Edit: All gimp and gutenprint ppds don't do anything, foomatic bliks, raw prints blabber.
On the other computer with everything the same, only KDE and it's wizards, gimp-print worked. Has to be something else.

Bumping, I don't think it's drivers.

Works for me ... some thoughts.
 

Nothing like a prompt reply, right?

I had not had a problem at 11.0 install, but after 12.0 was installed on the network, something went haywire when attempting to administer the printer from that system. (Don't try it. ;-)

I looked here when I had the need to get it working again ... but ended up just deleting the printer and reinstalling it, using the hpijs driver and it all works fine.

Do you have the printer port set up correctly? While the current kernels have auto-probing built into the parport_pc module, it doesn't always work right (like on this system of mine.) The easy way to force a configuration is by adding a line like the following to your /etc/modules.conf:

options parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7

That is correct for my LPT: port, check your BIOS settings to verify yours.

Lastly, make sure there is no trash in the printer's buffer each time you restart a job or the printer. My 4L is easily lost in these situations; I generally either cycle the power or hold the button down on the top until the LEDs light up in sequence.

What a rock this printer is. It was my primary home office printer for years, then my FAX server printer for many more; still bails me out when I forget to buy toner for the current workhorse. (At 4 pages a minute, it takes a long time to go through a cartridge!)

PostScript
 

No mention of what kind of printer interface is being used. Starting on line 12 you will see that in process 3617 a PostScript interface has been called, and it fails. Is the ps-to-raster utility functional? You will certainly get a fault code as you describe, if cups is sending P.S. to a non P.S. printer. There may be a cups setup problem there, since the conversion process does not depend upon communication with the printer. If possible, set up cups to print to a P.S. printer to confirm that the basic system is working.

-D5

Missing packages?
 

I hadn't picked up on that. Doh!

You need to check to make sure that the supporting packages are installed. Some of the ones that might be implicated are:

a2ps-4.13b-i386-2
gimp-print-4.2.7-i486-2
espgs-8.15.3svn185-i486-3_slack11.0
cups-1.1.23-i486-5_slack11.0

[NOTE: at least those last two are found in the /patches directory on your favorite mirror. I would reinstall AT LEAST all of these and then check in /etc for .new files, and either interleave the changes or just use them as is for starters.]

and there are font packages that might be important on later versions of Slackware, but I don't think they are segregated in version 11.

Thanks for your reply, but you do understand that the thread was a year old? : D. Right now the printer works just fine, although on another computer. If I remember correctly, at the time I fixed the problem somehow by using the GIMP printer drivers and messing with the settings page. Anyway, solved long ago.