I just experimented a bit with printerdrake and various drivers/settings with
my HP Deskjet 890C.
First the versions of some of the packages:
cups-1.1.10-1mdk
cups-drivers-1.1-4mdk
foomatic-1.1-0.20010812mdk
libgimpprint4-4.1.99-5mdk
gimp-1.2.2-3mdk
libgimp1.2_1-1.2.2-3mdk
gimpprint-4.1.99-5mdk
libgimpprint4-devel-4.1.99-5mdk
drakxtools-1.1.7-6mdk
ghostscript-6.51-13mdk
I had this drivers in printerdrake available:
CUPS + Gimp-Print 4.1.99-a2 (en)
GhostScript + cdj890
GhostScript + gimp-print
GhostScript + gimp-print (recommended)
GhostScript + pcl3
Don't know what's the difference is between GhostScript + gimp-print and
GhostScript + gimp-print (recommended), it seems the same? I have only tried
the recommended one.
Results:
GhostScript + gimp-print (recommended)
Works fine with the default settings. When I set the "GhostScript
Resolultion" setting to 600x600 and the "Quality" setting both to 600x600
monochrome, the standard test page did not print out correctly: I only got a
white paper whith a thick black border with white speckles on the left and
upper side, about 1 cm thick.
CUPS + Gimp-Print 4.1.99-a2 (en)
When choosing this driver, printerdrake bombed out with this message on the
console: Cannot open file /usr/share/foomatic/db/source/driver/CUPS +
GIMP-Print v4.1.99-a2.xml
Unable to load driver - does it exist?
foomatic-configure failed at /usr/lib/libDrakX/printer.pm line 677.
GhostScript + cdj890
Works fine with default settings (= "Printing Quality""Presentation").
Quality seems to me personally a bit better than the GhostScript + gimp-print
(recommended), because everything seems a bit sharper.
GhostScript + pcl3
With default settings (= Resolution: 300 DPI, "Quality" set to "Default
Setting"), works OK. Gives the best quality for text, very sharp and clear,
but colour output is very "grainy". Maybe this can be solved by tweaking the
"Intensity Rendering", I have not tried this though.
When changing the resolution of this driver to 600 DPI or 300 x 600 DPI,
nothing happens when trying to print the test pages, no error message is
given.
Frederik Himpe
