On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:08:16 -0400 Predrag Punosevac <punoseva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Antoine Jacoutot wrote: > >On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 09:10:18PM +0200, Erwin Geerdink wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> Recently I obtained a Canon Pixma MP230 printer/scanner which I > >> can't get to work on my OpenBSD box. OpenBSD recognizes the device > >> (w/ > >kernel > >> ulpt device disabled), however: > >> > >> - There is no cups/foomatic driver for this specific model. I tried > >> the MP220 and MP240 ppd drivers but they don't work (the device > >> indicator light blinks twice, which means 'no paper in tray', which > >> is obviously not the case) > >> > >> - Canon provides IJ printer drivers for Linux (source). Simply > >> using the included ppd file results in an error: "File > >> "/usr/local/libexec/cups/filter/pstocanonij" not available: No such > >> file or directory" > >> Clearly, the linux drivers need to be built but this also results > >> in errors. Unfortunately, I do not have the programming/porting > >> skills to solve this problem. > >> > >> Does anyone know how to get this device work? > > > >Canon is one of the worst brand when it comes to opensource. > >pstocanonij might just be a wrapper which you can get from a linux > >rpm and tweak to \ > >make it work (I had luck doing that using some linux driver for > >unsupported Brother \ > >printers) -- or it might just be a linux-only binary blob in which > >case, there's not \ > >much hope. > > > >When it comes to printing/scanning, I would get the hell away from > >Canon and Brother \ > >-- there are the worst by far. They support Linux the same way NVidia > >does for its \ > >graphic chips... > > You just got the answer from the man who is responsible for the fact > that OpenBSD has up-to-date port of sane-backends, foomatic-filters, > hplip, and pretty much any opensource printer driver under the Sun. > Together with people like Matthias Kilian who is maintainer of the > Ghostscript and slue of other useful desktop related ports, former > developer Jacob Meuser who has disappeared from this mailing list few > years ago (Jake I hope you are OK where ever you are now. We remember > when you ported Ghostscript to OpenBSD) they managed to enable OpenBSD > to work with pretty much any common desktop related hardware. > > However, I do believe that we as users owe them to educate ourself > about the thins as PostScript, Printer Command Language(PCL), LPD > protocol, IPP protocol and similar things. > > You will do a great favor to yourself if you get a decent printer > which speaks PostScript or at least (PCL5) or some of network > protocols. The same goes for a scanner that can scan directly to a > USB or SD card and requires no drivers or just a really good Epson > scanner. > > As of Canon Pixma series it is probably not worthy time it took me to > write this e-mail. I can't speak of Canon but as of Brother I can say > that their better laser printers (HL-5450DN and above) are excellent > and can be just plugged and used on the OpenBSD (they speak > PostScript, PCL5 or some of network protocols). However, I am > avoiding them as they have relative higher price per page than Xerox > or DeLL(rebranded Lexmark) printers which I use. They also use more > electricity. > > I do not know your location but in the U.S. you can buy a decent used > DeLL/Lexmark printer with less than 2000 pages on the drum for less > than $50. > > Best, > Predrag > Thank you very much for your responses. Indeed, this printer wouldn't be my pick either (got it for free) but it's all I have for now. SANE's latest version should support the scanner using the sane-pixma backend, according to their website. I will try this when Openbsd 5.3 is released. As for the printer, I probably stick to dual-booting if no workaround exists. Erwin
