Help with Cups?

johnio · n00b Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 46 Location: Boston, MA

I'm having problems configuring up CUPS.

It does not seem to be able to configure my printer. I have a HP 722C. But whatever port use it is never able to comunicate with the printer.

big_pig · Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2002 8:48 pm Post subject:

I think the HP 722 is a ppa printer. If I remember correctly, in the 90s HP tried to make a line of printers a little cheaper by leaving off some of the chips normally installed in the printer and letting the computer handle those functions.

Well, any way, cups by default can not understand ppa printers. All is not lost, just emerge net-print/pnm2ppa and you should beable to get cups to communicate to your 722. I can't remember if you'll need to generate a PPD file at www.linuxprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=pnm2ppa or if net-print/pnm2paa takes care of that for you.

bp

ZagiFlyer · Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2002 10:25 pm Post subject:

Have you seen the new Gentoo Printing HOW-TO?
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johnio · n00b Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 46 Location: Boston, MA

I was able to set my printer up in Cups.

But for some reason my printer port is nowhere to be seen.

I did compile paralell port support in the kernel but no /dev/lp0 or alike shows up in /dev.

What exacly would the device be called, and what exact option besides "paralel port" support needs to be in the kernel?

scottro · Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2002 2:09 am Post subject:

Heh, I did that the other day--shucks, which one did I forget? (I saw I had no /dev/lp0 and went back and fixed it.)

Hold one while I look......

Basically, there are two spots. One sounds like what you found

Parallel Port Support

Ah, here it is. Block devices--did you put support in there as well? Block Devices =>Parallel Printer Support. That's the one that I frequently leave out if I'm in a hurry.

HTH

Quick PS, as far as cups, a lot of people are finding that they have better luck if they specifically put cups in their USE variables in /etc/make.conf and also if they re-emerge ghostscript after installing cups. (Although your issue sounds different than the usual ones)

Scott

johnio · n00b Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 46 Location: Boston, MA

Thank you.

I did forget to enable Block Devices =>Parallel Printer Support. And actually it is a character devices. But close enough.

Thanks.

johnio · n00b Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 46 Location: Boston, MA

For some reason the port still does not work.

I get a messages while the kernel is botting that says something like "lp: no devices found".

Now I knows my printer and parallel port are working because I can print with no problem in Mandrake and it is using the parport-lp driver.

What could be different?

scottro · Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2002 10:41 pm Post subject:

You're right of course--character devices--block device is a parallel hard drive or something.

The only other thing I can think of is in Parallel port support I have pc style hardware in there as a module (the help says if in doubt say yes. )

I hate to suggest this, because it's a pain, but maybe you should, if you still have the MD install, and have kernel sources, look through there, that is, go through make menuconfig in MD and see what you did differently.

HTH a little

Scott

scottro · Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2002 4:16 am Post subject:

Sorry to answer my own post--but in a fresh install of 1.4_rc1, I had the same issue as you, not having a /dev/lp0.

FWIW--I just imitated my config on 1.2. There, I'd had everything as a module--in this (the 1.4) config, I'd put the parallel port support as part of the kernel. So, changed it to module, recompiled, and everything is fine.

HTH a bit
Scott

biroed · Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2002 5:11 pm Post subject:

Did you edit the pnm2ppa.conf file?

johnio · n00b Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 46 Location: Boston, MA

You need to enable hot-plugable devices in the kernel.

R-II · n00b Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 30

run a dmesg, chances are the printer is coming up as a 720C instead of a 722C (it does that in windows too, it drives me crazy). I just got my own 722C to work by setting it up for a 720C. Try it.