[lug] setting up CUPS....

[D. Stimits]

Bear Giles wrote:
> I decided to try CUPS, but nothing is printed.  It's an HP LJ1200 on the 
> parallel port, I specified everything on the web admin page, manually 
> specified the correct PPD file with lpadmin.  Still, nothing. I don't 
> run either KDE or Gnome, but the docs said that it's wizards are helpful 
> but not necessary.
> 
> Has anyone else had this problem?  The printer works fine under LPRNG, 
> but some sites say that I can get better quality/faster performance if I 
> use CUPS & PPD instead of feeding a raw PS stream across the parallel port.

Since you know the printer is able to be printed from on the parallel 
port, you know your kernel drivers for that port are ok. The CUPS print 
manager understands several printer protocols, and LPR is only one of 
them. The IPP protocol is a two-way protocol, whereas LPR is one-way. 
Print managers can talk to a printer with LPR, but need IPP to let the 
printer talk back (unless you use a custom driver that is built for some 
non-portable management of your printer). IPP is superior to LPR, so I'd 
say use that if you can. My guess is that you have the wrong protocol 
specified.

The PPD file is itself a way to map printer features that are 
hardware-dependent into a portable format (think of printer-specific XML 
theme that isn't XML) that any print manager can understand. The PPD 
used to be only for PostScript printers, but has become the de facto 
standard for virtually all printers regardless of their print language. 
With the PPD, the print manager knows how to talk the control language 
of the printer, but this has no bearing on the protocol, other than 
perhaps using IPP instead of LPR lets the print manager also listen to 
the printer and not simply yell at it. Not all printers understand IPP 
though...if your printer does understand IPP, it's the best way to go. 
Double-check that you are using LPR protocol first since you know that 
works; once it works with LPR, you can also add a queue entry for IPP or 
at least try; then set whichever you want as default.

D. Stimits, stimits AT comcast DOT net