missing apsfilter printer driverForum: Printers Topic: missing apsfilter printer driver started by: wetterau Posted by wetterau on Mar. 06 2005,07:31
apsfilter says that the hl1250 driver is not in the version of gs and to recompile gs. Is there any other way to get a Brother HL1270N or HL1400 series driver into the system? I tried synaptic gimp, cups, etc. and got nowhere. TIA
Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 06 2005,07:53
Supposedly, the Brother HL-1250 is a PCL compatiple printer.This means that any older HP InkJet or LaserJet driver should work fine. Try some of the HP drivers like the LaserJet 4 driver for example. Posted by wetterau on Mar. 07 2005,01:50
Thanks cbagger. No luck with the lj4 driver, either. I can't get past "can't start ijs server ijsgimpprint" I searched the forum and found one instance, clivesay, who cited using option 5 instead of 4 in gimpprint to solve the problem, but I think that was on an earlier version of DSL. I could find no gimpprint or ijsgimpprint on the system (.9.3 installed to hd, complete install). I downloaded all the gimp packages using Synaptic. Made no difference. Still can't find a file ijsgimpprint on my system. Any suggestions? This Brother HL 1435 is supposed to be a plain vanilla HP clone; it works fine with W2K on another Thinkpad 600e that Eleanor uses, so it isn't the printer. I'm using a parallel cable, absolutely straightforward. Aside from printing, DSL is working very well.
Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 07 2005,02:35
Hmm...It is possible that your Synaptic gimp downloads conflicted with the files / paths for apsfilter. I would either install full-blown CUPS from Synaptic, or boot from the livecd and see if you can get apsfilter to work while not using your hd install. Posted by wetterau on Mar. 07 2005,06:13
Thanks for your response. I found the cause of the ijsgimpprint error: earlier versions of ghostscript (which we must have in DSL .9.3) use the stp software rather than the ijs software. Both choices are given in apsfilter. Choice 4 is for stp; choice 5 is for ijs. Choice 4 drivers will not generate a missing ijsgimpprint error. I looked up the printer in Google and found that HPIIp was recommended as a substitute driver. So far, so good. I set up the live CD with the HPIIp driver from apsfilter choice 4. Still unable to print, however. I am unable to even #cat filetool.lst > /dev/lp0, so it would seem that the problem is more basic. The printer light flashes when told to print. A blank (header) page is produced sometimes, but nothing else is printed. The /var/spool/lpd/lp/status log generates a "tr: Write Error" message along with a lot of start up and shut down info. Write Error. Yup. Not sure what to try next. Maybe bed.
Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 07 2005,23:00
Hmm...Try printing as SuperUser aka root. Maybe the permissions on your device are preventing you from printing. Although I would expect to see more complaints from others if this was true. Posted by wetterau on Mar. 09 2005,00:30
Hi, just to finish the story--tried many combinations of drivers as su with no success. Downloaded SimplyMEPIS 3.3. which failed to find my wireless card (which works perfectly with DSL) but did have a Brother HL1430 driver to use in configuring the printer. Printing didn't work with that either, using the parallel port in the ThinkPad. But it DID work using a usb cable to the printer. I thought I was on to something and reloaded DSL to reconfigure for printing over the usb cable. I got the same results as using the parallel port--blinking data light and write error messages. Conclusion: DSL is fantastic and getting better with each release, but printing is still not possible unless your printer will work with one of the drivers listed in apsfilter choice 4 (the stp drivers for gimpprint (apsfilter relies on ghostscript for its drivers)). Fortunately, many printers will work, but this is an area which might be improved in a future release. For instance, the driver that would have solved everything for me was in the "IBM omni" choice listed in apsfilter but not compiled in ghostscript. Would it be possible to have a mydsl download choice for a ghostscript binary that contains all the drivers listed in apsfilter? If so, one download could save a lot of trouble for those who need drivers not in choice 4. Thanks for your help. Posted by wetterau on Mar. 09 2005,00:34
P.S. I should have said "non-postscript printer in choice 4." I guess postscript printers work; I don't know for sure, but they should, given that linux is postscript oriented.
Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 09 2005,04:42
Postscript printers should work out-of-the box.Basically, ghostscript is converting postscript output into the language of the specific non-postscript model printer that is attached. |