Print and scan module for Porteus 2.1

[Ahau]

As mentioned in our release announcement for Porteus 2.1 RC1, we've prepared a module that contains the various libraries and applications that are required for printing and scanning in Porteus. You can either add this module to a custom iso through our download wizard: https://build.porteus.org/
or download the module and add it to one of the default ISO's. You can get the printpack for rc1 here:
32-bit: http://dl.porteus.org/i486/testing/Port ... inting.xzm
64-bit: http://dl.porteus.org/x86_64/testing/Po ... inting.xzm

I thought I'd start a separate thread to discuss the printer module in order to have a consolidated list of issues and requests, so please feel free to post your feedback here.

First and foremost, if you've tried the print pack, please let me know your model of printer and/or scanner and indicate one of the following:
1) you're able to print and/or scan with this module without adding any additional scripts, ppd files, or packages
2) you're able to print and/or scan with this module, but you must add to it before the printer works. If this is the case, please let me know what you added, how you did so, and include a download link
3) you're unable to print and/or scan - please tell me what you've tried and what error messages you're getting, if any

In its present condition, I've added just those ppd's and drivers that are included in upstream Slackware or are needed to get my multifunction printer (a Canon Pixma mg5320) working. I'd like to add more to this so that the majority of major brands and models work out of the box, but I'll need your help in order to accomplish this goal.

Thanks!

Note: During testing I had an issue with the hp systray plugin trying to start up, and putting an icon in the middle of my screen instead of the notification area of my panel. I'm not sure if this was related to the fact that I compiled hplip against qt3 instead of qt4 or something else, but I'm considering disabling the systray plugin autolaunch. If anyone actually uses the systray plugin for their hp device and wants it to remain, please let me know

[francois]

Printer: BROTHER-MFC-7860DW-USB

- printer works fine usb
- the print pack selected the right driver or ppd, that is pcl 6 generic for BROTHER-MFC-7860DW-USB

- however if you config a network printer you have to set the right driver yourself with the brother printer. At least in my case, though system-config-printer finds BRN001BA98D25B7 and install the right driver, it will not work as BRN001BA98D25B7 is not defined as a fixed address. You have to assign your printer to a fix address in your router interface, see:
http://forum.porteus.org/posting.php?mo ... 61&p=13635


- there was also the installation of other devices perceived as network printers: Bluetooth-Modem, Hp_laserjet_M1536dmf_MFP, Internes_Modem, Officefet_H470, dj450.
- I am unable to remove these devices from the system-config-printer interface. It does not permit erasing these devices viewed as network printers.

- simple scan and Xsane do not work. They do not seem to find the right device.

[francois]

Scanner will not work unless the presence of the appropriate scanner driver. In the case of the BROTHER-MFC-7860DW-USB, here what has to be done:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=1336

I have to compile the xzm module from brscan4-0.4.1-4.amd64.deb. It seems to compile but I cannot find the module anywhere on the box with the search under rc1. So I can't see if I can resolve the problem for the scanner utilities.

[francois]

I am retesting already tested printers in some of my other thread, so no surprise that we get the same results with the same printers. I hope that people will test this print and scan modules of yours.

Printer: Brother printer DCP-7020

- plugged usb cable once porteus was booted up.
- it says no available printer for this model.
- same result as in previous testing:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2103
The ppd being available on openprinting.org:
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Bro ... r-DCP-7020
http://www.openprinting.org/ppd-o-matic ... 020&show=0

Is it possible for you to add it to the printer pack?

Thanks.

[wread]

Hi all!

Many months ago I made a package for HP printers that worked with Porteus 1 or even 0.9. From there I learned that printing and scanning in Linux will never be an easy task, and I consider 07-printing the greatest challenge the Porteus Team has ever faced. Dr. Ahau, you are a very courageous Porteus Member!

I have updated that HPPrinter-package several times to keep up with development. Meanwhile also francois, the valiant printer researcher, took up the hard way of making Porteus work with other popular printer brands in the market.

I have the feeling, the printer vendors don't like us linux fans -our pressure group is not big enough- or maybe they think we should switch to Windows to print our stuff? Much software is proprietary or they will not show the sources or even let us know, how their printers are supposed to be driven.

With scanners it is not different: the "sane" group has had to split the problems in "backends" and "frontends" in order not to go "insane"; it is said that a complex problem can be divided in many less-complex ones, and this is what they are doing.

I have made my first trials with 07-printing and HP printers; I wanted to get "hp-check" run to "No errors" OTB without success (this weekend). I found some incompatibilities I am now researching. When I am ready with a solution, I will post it in this thread. I am trying to build a particular "07-printinghp" that works as usual with part of the modules listed in /var/log/packages first. I am testing fanthom's KDE4-32-bits, Fine Bussiness!

If we all do that for the most popular printer brands, we could end up with a 070-printcore and many 07x-printnn special modules, and with luck we could even supply vendors with their "Linux Printing and Imaging Solution" (Li-PIS)

Regards!

Really, I didn't want to write this long article...

[Ahau]

Many thanks, francois and wread!

Printers and scanners are a challenge indeed, so your help and patience are very much appreciated

francois, I did leave out some of the packages you listed on the printing threads, for a couple reasons: first, I had time limitations and hardware limitations (access to only one printer for testing) and second, I wanted to build a core module first and then start adding in. I now have that core together so I'm trying to extend support to additional devices, and your comments are coming in very handy; my apologies if you have to say the same thing more than once!

I've done my best to get support for HP and Canon out of the box, and I've just added a package for Epson Inkjet printers. As you've found, it seems it will be difficult to provide support for all Brother models. They seem to have a different cupswrapper script and driver for every model, and to further complicate things, their drivers are 32-bit only, so to support them out of the box we'd also need to add compat-32 libraries for the 64-bit version. Have you had success using only PPD's for your brother devices? Also, have you tried converting debian packages? If you look at the debian packagse here:
http://pkgs.org/search/?keyword=brother you will see that they've grouped many together, and this might make it easier for me if I can pull their packages and combine them into a monolithic package/module. I've not checked yet to see if the debian brother drivers require 32-bit compat libraries to work on 64-bit as well (hopefully not but my suspicion is they will).

I can go ahead and add the ppd file you specified -- in which directory do you place it? I do have some concern about adding one-off solutions (i.e. ppd's that only support one model) because I want to cover as many models as possible and if we add one ppd at a time, we'll wind up with a module that works very well for our testers but not for users who don't request their specific ppd's. I know there are some packages out there with lots of ppd's lumped together, and perhaps that will be one way to go.

All this presents yet another concern; we'll now have multiple ways to set up a printer (cups and system-config-printer), multiple ways to set up a scanner (xsane and simple-scan), and several printing methods for some models (proprietary drivers and ppd's), and I don't want it to get overly confusing. A challenge indeed...but we've got a start on it now and hopefully we can continue to improve it with time!

[francois]

@Ahau:
Sorry, if I am repeating myself. I do not know in fact what you read and what you did not read about my writings on printing and scanning. I am just trying to give constructive feedback as much as I can. I just want to follow you and be helpful. I understand that some of the packages I proposed were quite heavy, and if you found some turnaround, I will be the first on to be happy.

I am happy to see that you give some emphasis on brother printers. However, they have a small share of the market compared to the other brands. However, after working with hp printers for some time, I found brother printers with a better quality-price value and it seems to be more fast and robust. I peculiarly like the fact that toner and drums come separately.

Concerning brother printers, gutenprint (which is quite light) gives a good coverage, I would say that maybe working with the openprinting download site the other brother printers might be covered but I am not sure. For sure there is also the generic printer option that seems to work very efficiently for more recent brother printers. But I am not so sure I would have to eye scan the openprinting site to see what they do cover.

Converting rpm or deb packages works just fine. Though, if I remember the 32 bit and 64 bit have to be placed differently in the folder tree.

I just found gutenprint and ppd more useful as you do not have to convert them into modules. They work both with 32 and 64 architectures, but as you said with the compat library. For sure, thru the brother site everything is there in fhe form of deb or rpm. Maybe there is a way to automate fetching and transforming these drivers into porteus or slackware drivers.

When you are talking about converting deb packages are you talking about the cups drivers on the brother site? See:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bs ... d_prn.html

The ppds are installed in /etc/cups/ppd folder using gutenprint thru CUPS interface or system-config-printer. It seems. That is where I found the ones I had installed. Alas brother says on its site that not all the brother printers are ppd covered.

have multiple ways to set up a printer (cups and system-config-printer), multiple ways to set up a scanner (xsane and simple-scan),

These are just interfaces, some at first glance more intuitive: system-config-printer and simple scan.

several printing methods for some models (proprietary drivers and ppd's)

These methods are there for now. But in the near future they should be replaced by pdf printing, and it seems that this has already begun:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collabor ... enprinting

PDF as standard print job format is completely implemented on Debian and Ubuntu and will soon get upstream standard

From Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10, released mid-October) on all important desktop applications (GTK/GNOME, Qt/KDE, LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, ...) send print jobs in PDF and not in PostScript any more by default. In addition, a complete CUPS filter chain to process print jobs in PDF is available and used by Debian and Ubuntu.

CUPS author Mike Sweet/Apple have decided to not include the Linux-specific CUPS filters in the upstream CUPS source any more and we have agreed to maintain them at OpenPrinting. Here we will do some clean-up and discontinue the PostScript-centric workflow in favor of the PDF workflow, meaning that the upstream standard for CUPS under Linux (using CUPS plus our filter package) will be the PDF-based job processing, letting every non-PDF input be converted to PDF first, page management options being applied by a pdftopdf filter and Ghostscript being called with PDF as input.

Having this workflow we ask all driver developers kindly to not create any PPDs/drivers for non-Postscript printers which require exclusively PostScript. PPD files should at least accept PDF or CUPS Raster now. See also our driver design/packaging page.

More info on our page about the PDF printing workflow.

I will have a look later on your:
http://pkgs.org/search/?keyword=brother

However balazarbrothers_1.0~rc1-4.2_all.deb seems at first glance to be a game.

Sorry for using so many words to get my thoughts thru. I am following you and will be happy to not be in your way. Writing on this thread with brother printers was mostly a way to revive the thread and stimulate other users to comment on their printers.

[Ahau]

Many thanks, francois!

No worries about repeating yourself, that's my doing. Before starting on the printing module I searched the forum and read all of your posts in the last year or so related to printing; without your input I would be miles behind. Since I'm trying to build this thing from scratch including what's needed but not more, I am making it into an iterative process. Since I have only one device of my own for testing, this is rather like a game of "Marco Polo". I'll keep trying trying things out until we get it right; every time we test something we'll get closer to a well-running product.

That link I posted above wasn't very clear -- the packages to which I was referring were down in the debian section. I've downloaded all of them and converted them into xzm modules:

32-bit: http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... s_i386.xzm
64-bit: http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... x86_64.xzm

It looks to me like there is a mix of dynamically linked binary drivers and ppd files in there, and the binaries in the 64-bit package are 32-bit libraries as discussed above. I suspect any printer that pulls a ppd will work without the 32-bit compat libraries, but those with an lpr driver will need it.

According to the debian package descriptions, the following printers should be supported by these modules:

Code: Select all

HL-4040CN HL-4040CDN HL-4050CDN HL-4070CDW MFC-9440CN MFC-9450CDN MFC-9840CDW DCP-9040CN DCP-9042CN DCP-9045CDN DCP-130C DCP-330C DCP-540CN DCP-750CW FAX-1860C FAX-1960C FAX-2480C FAX-2580C MFC-240C MFC-3360C MFC-440CN MFC-5460CN MFC-5860CN MFC-660CN MFC-665CW MFC-845CW FAX-1815C FAX-1820C FAX-1835C FAX-1840C FAX-1920CN FAX-1940CN FAX-2440C MFC-210C MFC-3220C MFC-3240C MFC-3320CN MFC-3340CN MFC-3420C MFC-3820CN MFC-410CN MFC-420CN MFC-5440CN MFC-5840CN MFC-620CN DCP-110C DCP-310CN DCP-560CN DCP-770CW DCP-350C DCP-353C MFC-465CN MFC-680CN MFC-685CW MFC-885CW MFC-230C MFC-235C MFC-260C DCP-135C DCP-150C DCP-153C DCP-1000 DCP-1400 DCP-8020 DCP-8025D DCP-8040 DCP-8045D FAX-2850 FAX-2900 FAX-3800 FAX-4100 FAX-4750e FAX-5750e HL-1030 HL-1230 HL-1240 HL-1250 HL-1270N HL-1430 HL-1440 HL-1450 HL-1470N HL-1650 HL-1670N HL-1850 HL-1870N HL-5030 HL-5040 HL-5050 HL-5070N HL-5130 HL-5140 HL-5150D HL-5170DN HL-6050 HL-6050D MFC-4800 MFC-6800 MFC-8420 MFC-8440 MFC-8500 MFC-8820D MFC-8840D MFC-9030 MFC-9070 MFC-9160 MFC-9180 MFC-9660 MFC-9700 MFC-9760 MFC-9800 MFC-9860 MFC-9880 MFC-9420CN

francois, it looks like your models aren't included here, and I'm not sure why the debian packages don't have support for them when they've got so many others. I'll see about writing some kind of script to download all of the drivers from the brother site and converting them into a monolithic module.

I do hope that when they move to pdf printing it simplifies things instead of complicating it further!

[francois]

Thanks for all the fingers and brain sweat you are spending on the printer bundle.

I possess a HP LaserJet 3030, in case you need some testing of the printer module for HP cases.

[Payoon]

Hi folks,
have some good news to report. @ Ahau, Francois and Wread. My brother HL 2030 works.

Francois wrote

@payoon:
If you want, the ppd for your printer is also provided on openprinting for you brother printer (no need to convert the rpm to xzm module):
http://www.openprinting.org/ppd-o-matic ... 030&show=0
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Bro ... er-HL-2030

Try with config-system-printer interface:
panel > system > printing > provide a ppd file

I downloaded the ppd file and it works fine. Fine on porteus 32 bit on a netbook as well as on porteus 64 bit on 64 bit amd dual core machine.

The way to convert the printer drivers brhl2030lpr-2.0.1-1.i386.deb and cupswrapperHL2030-2.0.1-2.i386.deb to xzm do not work. That is also the experience of other users as the second link from Francois shows.

I remember that when I used Puppy Linux I had to use this two deb's in connection with an installerscript named debbi, that was written by a canadian puppyuser ( rcrsn51) . I show it below.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#the Debian-Brother Installer
#rcrsn51 2009-06-15
#installs a Debian printer package and executes the post-install script
#usage: debbi filename.deb 

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
  exit
fi

if [ ! -e $1 ]; then
  echo "File not found!"
  exit
fi

EXT=${1##*.}
if [ "$EXT" != "deb" ]; then
  echo "Not a .deb file!"
  exit
fi

dpkg-deb -x $1 /
dpkg-deb -e $1
if [ -e DEBIAN/postinst ]; then
  sh DEBIAN/postinst
  echo "Post-install script completed!"
fi
rm -rf DEBIAN
echo "Done!"

I have tried to do this under Porteus ( converted the debbi pet to xzm ) and even installed dpkg, but it didn't work.

Anyway Brother HL-2030 works with ppd file. I'm happy.

For my parport scanner canon FB 630p the thing is still in the works. I will post the results in the printer/scanner module thread if I have some news..

Thanks to you all.

Payoon

[Ahau]

Thanks, guys!

The more I play with the brother packages,the more I am thinking it would be better to handle it with ppd's only if possible for most printers. The debian packages I merged and posted yesterday don't cover all printers; inside those packages they've merged some of the files (configuration scripts, print filters, and a few other odds and ends) for groups of printers, but I don't know which additional printers go with which group (if they go at all), and everything is in binary form only so it's hard to sort out what exactly is going on. I found a way to download all of the .debs on the brother site, but it's around 235 MB compressed! Now, to hear that the ppd's by themselves are working in the cases we've seen here and the .debs are not working...using ppd's seems to be the more efficient route.

I'd like to download all of the brother ppd's they have on openprinting.org without clicking on several links in a web browser to get there, but can't find a repository that has them all (their website uses a php script to manage these downloads and I haven't been able to locate a simple repository). I found many inside http://www.openprinting.org/download/PPD/Brother/, but this doesn't cover all of the models that have ppd's listed on their website. I suppose I'll resort to downloading them all individually (enter the "finger sweat" referred to by francois!).

[francois]

Maybe we can share the job together, or with other volunteers.

Are you sure that you will be covering every model with the ppd strategy? I should be more available this weekend, until then I am quite busy.

[Ahau]

thanks, francois, and sorry it took so long for me to respond.

I've downloaded all of the ppd's for brother printers that are listed on the openprinting.org site and will add them to my module for RC2. This will not cover ALL Brother printers but it will cover many of them (I hope). Since converting debs is size intensive and seems to not work in any of the test cases so far, this seems to be the better approach.

[francois]

Great!

Thanks for all the brother printer users.

[francois]

Is there a new version of the print module for rc2?