Re: Printer Question

[Phillip Deackes <gsmh@gmx.co.uk>]

On Sat, 26 May 2001 08:59:23 -0700
Mark Wagnon <markwagnon@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > I just installed the rpm version onto my Debian box. Caused no
> problems at
> > all.
> 
> You did that with alien? I take it there are no deb packages then,
> right?

No deb packages. I just installed the rpm with rpm -Uvh xxxxxx.rpm. I seem
to remember I couldn't get it to work with alien. Direct installs with rpm
are not a problem when the package is fairly trivial. If you look inside
the pacakge using Midnight Commander, or GMC if you use Gnome, you can
soon see if installing the package is going to cause any problems. Often
you need --nodeps as a parameter to rpm because you will not have any rpm
dependencies installed on your system, of course.

Do you actually need to use lprng? I know when I tried it I couldn't get
printing working reliably. I decided to stick with plain old lpr in the
end.

Here is my /etc/printcap file:

laser|lp|Printer1 auto:\
    	:lp=/dev/lp0:\
    	:if=/etc/apsfilter/basedir/bin/apsfilter:\
    	:sd=/var/spool/lpd/laser:\
    	:lf=/var/spool/lpd/laser/log:\
    	:af=/var/spool/lpd/laser/acct:\
    	:mx#0:\
    	:sh:
colour|pips|epson|lp1:\
	:lp=/dev/usblp0:\
	:sh:\
	:if=/usr/local/EPKowa/sc680_777/filter-sc680_777:\
	:sd=/var/spool/lpd/sc680_777:\
	:mx#0:\
	:lf=/var/log/lpd/sc680_777:

Note I connect my Stylus 680 via USB; The first entry is for my laser
printer which I connect to the parallel port. A nice arrangement because I
can easily print to either printer without using a switch or installing
another parallel port.

The other day I printed a photo onto Epson glossy paper and the result was
absolutely superb. Never have I seen such good quality from a colour
printer on any platform! The Epson driver comes with a GUI utility which
allows you to choose the print quality, paper type etc..

The other think to check, of course, is permissions on your spool
directory - you must be able to write to it as a regular user. Also you
may need to add yourself to the lpr group. 

Good luck on getting it all working.

-- 
Phillip Deackes
Using Progeny Debian Linux