Solved!!! (Was Re: Setting up a postscript printer)
I finally got my Lexmark Optra E312 printer working.
A couple of nights ago I was futzing around with the "PPDS Activation"
setting on the printer, mistakenly thinking that since I was trying to
use the PPD file with CUPS, this setting might need to be
on. When PPDS activation is enabled, PCL and PS language support on the
printer stops working. This is what a Lexmark support techie told me
when I called them up today.
I then went through the exercise of pressing the reset button in odd
combinations and got PPDS deactivated. After that, I configured CUPS
again using the same PPD file that I had tried before, and voila! I was
able to print from Netscape and XEmacs (using the ps-print package). The
output looked very good indeed.
The only problem I am having now with CUPS is that I can't print text
files: they seem to spool to the printer fine, the CUPS jobs manager
says that the text file printed successfully. But only the Data LED on
the printer blinks, nothing gets printed. Converting text to PS using
a2ps, however, works perfectly. Not sure if this is a bug with the
Debian CUPS packages or if its an upstream bug.
One other odd thing I have noticed with CUPS is that after some amount
of time (not sure how much), jobs sent to the printer via CUPS don't
print at all. The Data LED on the printer blinks but nothing (not even
PS output that I got before) prints. Stopping the cups daemon and
restarting it seems to fix it.
Has anyone else experienced these problems with the woody CUPS packages
?
LPRng+magicfilter (ps600 filter) seem to work perfectly. For now, I am
using LPRng+magicfilter until I am able to figure out why I am having
those two problems with CUPS.
Thanks to all who replied.
Regards,
--
Salman Ahmed
ssahmed AT pathcom DOT com
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