Printing: porteus print pack candidate, testers needed

[francois]

In the elaboration of a easy to use print pack for porteus sytem-config-printer is to be tested. All you have to do is to test the print pack candidate.

HOWTO: Porteus print pack candidate usb (porteus v. 2.0 64 bit edition).

1.0 Download system-config-printer from PPM (Porteus package manager) and activate the modules (if you did not do so with PPM).
2.0 Plug the usb calble of your printer. If it is already plugged, unplug and replug it so that system-config-printer-udev detects it.
3.1 The printer driver should intall automatically. In this case confirm proper funtioning by accepting test page printing.
3.2 If not, accept search and follow the proposed selection, until the printer is installed, and accept test page printing.
3.3 To get the test page printing, you may have to use the following menu selection:
panel > system > printer
and then right click on the printer, select properties, Print Test Page.

Note: You can look at the printer status or modify the printer function thru system-config-printer:
panel > system > printer

COMMENTS:
Please comment on the print pack by mentioning your printer manufacturer and model, the gui selection of printer driver, the result of test page printing and if you may ,some follow-up on printing task that you performed then after.

EXAMPLES:

Some examples of comments are provided in the following posts

ADDITIONAL DATABASES
4.0 If the print pack does not offer an appropriate printer driver.
4.1 If you have a HP printer: download with PPM hplip package without dependencies which will be used as a printer driver database, activate hplip module and go thru steps 2 and 3.
4.2 If you have another manufacturer model: download the foomatic system and its database ) and go thru steps 2 and 3:
http://www.mediafire.com/?5alu6748hfjfq
- foomatic-db-20130414-x86_64.xzm,
- foomatic-db-engine-4.0.8-x86_64-1fl.xzm,
- foomatic-db-nonfree-20130414-x86_64.xzm,
- but not foomatic-filters-4.0.12-x86_64-1.xzm that came with the system-config-printer system

PRINTER TROUBLESHOOTING AND ADDITIONAL SOLUTIONS:
When system-config-printer does not work even with the hp or foomatic databases.

5.0 Additional solutions to install the printer drivers are to look at the openprinting website which propose solutions accordind to printer manufacturer and model:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers/
Or by trying to install a third party ppd (linux or windows ppd's), see:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... 252#p14252
Please report on the fact that you had to resort to these database.

[Rava]

I presume it will work well with XFCe flavour of Port, and will not need any KDE deps?

Then I will test it! I have 2 Canon Ink Printers.

[francois]

In fact, I use it under XFCE edition. Though, it should work under all the desktop flavor of porteus.

Thanks for looking at it.

[francois]

Brother HL-2170W
- unpluged and replugged usb cable

- seach dialog box opened, clicked on search
- generic printer PCL6/PCL XL Printer was proposed
- printer works just fine

[francois]

Brother printer DCP-7020:
- unpluged and replugged usb cable

- seach dialog box opened, clicked on search
- Canon manufacturer pixma mg 6200 was proposed. The printer did not worked at print test.

- using the foomatic system package:
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=2083
I stay in the brother manufacturer but I am proposed the DCP-7025, which does not work:
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=2083

- troubleshooting I resorted to openprinting site which proposed to download a ppd for the DCP-7020:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers/
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Bro ... r-DCP-7020
- this time upon installation of the ppd openprinting site the printer was fully functional.

Comment: the system-config-printer interface is simpler to handle than the CUPS interface. Under the debian distribution the brother DCP-7020 printer is found without error. Some packages are missing in our porteus print pack.

[francois]

Brother MFC-7860DW
- unpluged and replugged usb cable
- seach dialog box opened, clicked on search
- generic printer PCL6/PCL XL Printer was proposed
- printer works just fine

- foomatic database alone (without gutenprint database activated) provides as possible drivers choices: Brother MFC-7840W and Generic PCL Laser Printer. Brother MFC-7840W drivers which is not MFC-7860DW, does not work as replacement for MFC-7860DW. Generic PCL Laser Printer is the right choice, it will even print duplex (both sides of the page), if the option is selected.

[francois]

HP-Laserjet-3030
- unpluged and replugged usb cable
- seach dialog box opened, automatically searches for printer
- printer hp-Laserjet-3030 automatically installed
- printer works just fine

[francois]

Canon MP145:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=1994

Cttan reports that he has tested the system-config-printer setup and able to print test page from his usb Canon MP145 without problem.

He states that it is a: «... very good utility for newbie user.»

[brokenman]

Tested on Porteus 64bit KDE system without cups.

All modules were downloaded and activated (including cups).

Unfortunately rc.cups was not executable by default and the cups service was not started (maybe cups module can be tweaked to start service upon activation). After starting cups and plugging in my printer nothing popped up. But when i went into printer config (KDE4) and asked to add a new printer .... there she was. Canon MP250 with a successful test page printed. Nice work and very user friendly to add a new printer.

[Ahau]

It took me a while to figure out, but I've got this working now with my Canon PIXMA MG5320 working over wireless. I thought the issue was a missing driver, so I was installing the PPD from the manufacturer but still couldn't get the printer to produce a test page. Finally, I ran a search on slackbuilds.org and found this: http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.0/ ... cups-bjnp/ which is required to get Canon printers working over wireless. Once I built and installed this, getting the printer running was a breeze. I did note that the manufacturer's PPD printed in the margins correctly and had nice bright colors on the color wheel. The driver included in gutenprint (which was selected after I removed the manufacturer's PPD) printed a little off the margins and the colors were a bit dingy. Of course, the text actually looked better, so I guess you can't have it both ways!

Anyway, I'm trying to finalize the package list for our printer module for Porteus 2.1. Francois, can you confirm that you did need foomatic-db and foomatic-engine in order to get some of your printers working, or would they run with just the foomatic-filters package? Foomatic-filters is included in mainline Slackware but the db and engine are not, and the db is quite large, so I'm hopeful that just the filters are required for the majority of models.

Another big round of applause for Francois for getting all of this information together!

[francois]

Foomatic-filters alone will provide the basic packages to run foomatic-db ppds and drivers. Foomatic-filters could not run printer alone, without a ppd specific for a specific printer model. However, it seems that ppds could be found and downloaded individually for a specific model on the open printer site, and you can run these if you have foomatic-filters package on your system:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers/

If you have some place for hplip without dependencies, as config-system-printer or CUPS could run hplip drivers and ppds without dependencies, I would add it even more than foomatic-db, as HP printers seem to have the big part of the market.

But maybe a good idea would be to have guntentprint as the main database for the printer pack, and simply suggest separately hplip (without dependencies) and foomatic-db (in addition to foomatic-db-nonfree and foomatic-engine) as additional printer databases for those users not finding their printer drivers or ppd.

And as you realized, we did not cover extensively Canon printers which have a few specific set of drivers unavailable thru the above mentioned database. Your own printer being an example, but also canon lbp printer serie:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... lit=+canon

Already coming out with a printer pack is a major advance. We will surely learn from the comments of people using it.