Re: HP 6L + gimp-print problem

[Michael Loßin <phallobst@xxxxxx>]

On 15-Feb-02 Adam D. Gorski wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been using apsfilter and Ghostscript to print to my HP 6L using the
> ljet4 driver 
[...switching to stp...]
> I selected the LaserJet 4 family in the gimp-print driver, and I printed

Isn't the "HP LaserJet 6 series" driver the correct one?
Or is it the notorious "L" which will cause that one to fail?

> test page... success! Not only that, but the quality of the graphics was
> much better due to the 600dpi (as opposed to 300dpi with ljet4) resolution.
> I installed the configuration into my printcap, restarded lpd, and tried to
> print a test text page.... bummer! It didn't work.

Which is wierd, since the same settings are used for printing
the test page and normal operation.

Besides that, the gimp-print driver uses 300dpi as the default
"medium" printing quality -- so I guess the quality boost is a
result of much better dithering algorithms.

600dpi are used with "high" and "photo" modes -- maybe you'd
want to set the default printing quality to one of these.

> Basically this is what happens. The printer looks like it's about to print,
> but stops. If I press the manual feed button, it prints out:
> 
> Error: /rangecheck in --.outputpage--
>                                      Operand stack
>                                                    1   true
>                                                             Execution stack
> 
> Note the stair stapping on top of it all. When I check
> /var/spool/lpd/lp/log
> I see the following:
> 
> apsfilter warning: unknown option 'Foo'
> Plain is not a valid media type
> AFPL Ghostscript 7.04: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

Ouch!
The gimp-print doc says "PCL laser printers do not allow
specification of any media type." -- but we ignored that for
no apparent reason...

(Although this problem should have occured while printing or
creating the test page...)


To solve that problem in your case, perform the following
steps (adjust all paths accordingly):

1) Copy "/usr/local/share/apsfilter/driver/stp/pcl-1220"
   (which is currently the script for a couple of drivers)
   to "/usr/local/share/apsfilter/driver/stp/pcl-4"
   (if that is the correct driver name you are using --
   check your apsfilterrc if in doubt).

2) Edit "/usr/local/share/apsfilter/driver/stp/pcl-4"
   (the newly created file) and remove the last "case/esac"
   paragraph which sets the media type specification.

> apsfilter warning: unknown option 'Foo'
> 
> Please note that 'Foo' is actually the Hostname of my machine, which is the
> part I really don't understand. The .ps file printer fine, but plain text
> will just not work. I'm back to using the ljet4 driver for now, but this
> has
> be rather baffled.

This is some annoying (mis-)feature of your lpd which includes
the host name in the class specification. Just ignore it.

(I'm still waiting for someone with a host name that matches an
actual apsfilter option, resulting in unexpected behaviour...)


HTH
Michael