On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:18:05 PST Morten Gulbrandsen <Morten.Gulbrandsen at rwth-Aachen.DE> wrote: > This is a very interesting notice, > you report that you posess an LJ MP5 > which has adobe post script level 2 embedded. > and you can print even as fast through USB to parallel adapter as > only through parallel port. > > please does it work if it is a printer > which only supports PCL 5 printer control language ?
The LJ MP5 is also a PCL printer. The USB to parallel adapter worked fine when I fed PCL to the printer, though it was *much* faster to feed postscript to the printer rather than feed the postscript to ghostscript to generate PCL to feed to the printer. > do you use CUPS like here explained? CUPS is an abomination, largely because of the way it mishandles native printer formats. I used magicfilter 1.0 until the MP5 needed repair work more expensive than replacing the printer, at which point I no longer had a printer with native postscript, so surrendered and switched to CUPS. > and I can use this driver ? on solaris and BSD? > Do I need to compile it myself? > http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-LaserJet_5P These drivers are how you *render* output for the printer, and whether you're using a parallel port or a USB port is immaterial. The only thing that changes in the CUPS configuration when you switch from parallel to USB is the physical device the printer is connected to. I haven't gotten around to moving my printers to Solaris, but both drivers are available for FreeBSD in their package tree. > since it will then be a USB "retrofitted or rebranded" printer > I have the experience that USB 64-bit drivers for > most UNIX like operating systems can be very difficult. I've been using hpijs (both with and without) hplip for printing on 64-bit BSD systems for years, with no problems. > I do however not get the same print quality > which is achieved with HP printer driver on windows. That will probably always be true - most of HP's customers are on Windows, so that's where they're going to concentrate their development work no the drivers. > It would be a great achievement if any USB printer can be detected > hot pluggable and simply work right out of the box on open solaris, > as is the case on some competing OSes like windows and Max OSX. OSX uses cups underneath (one of the reasons I surrendered), so it certainly should be possible. I believe the hplip drivers will do that for HP printers, but it's been a while since I set one up. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
