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#296343 - 03/04/2007 23:43 Linux Printing Issue
ShadowMan addict Registered: 09/06/1999 Posts: 558 Loc: Newfoundland, Canada	I've switched my fiancee over to Edubuntu Linux and she's only having one problem so far. Our printer has no support under Linux. It's a Dell branded Lexmark that no one has made work with Linux yet. The printer is connected to an XP box and is shared over our network. Is there any way to setup a printer in Linux that prints to a "fake" printer on my pc and then my pc takes that print and sends it to my printer? What I see working is a utility on my XP box that monitors a folder for new files (I.e. .pdf files) and whenever it found a new file the utility would automatically print it for me. We have used this type of program for printing to networked printers from a dos program on a Windows 2000 box at work and it was fine. But that only supports ASCII text. Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions. The printer is a Dell All-In-One 922. Thanks! Rene _________________________ 12 gig empeg Mark II, SN: 080000101 30 gig RioCar SN: 30103114 My blog
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#296344 - 03/04/2007 23:50 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: ShadowMan]
wfaulk carpal tunnel Registered: 25/12/2000 Posts: 16706 Loc: Raleigh, NC US	Yeah, I did this before in a similar situation. Umm, there was a Windows utility that set up a printer that took postscript input and then ran it through the Windows-only print driver. Let me see if I can remember. It's been quite a while, but I believe I used RedMon somehow or another. In particular, I didn't use ghostscript to generate the input to the Windows-only printer. (It may have been used as an intermediate step, but it did not know the printer's native language.) I know that somehow I got Windows to accept some sort of data and have the Windows-only printer driver do the proprietary stuff, but I can't quite remember how now. Edited by wfaulk (04/04/2007 00:00) _________________________ Bitt Faulk
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#296345 - 04/04/2007 00:41 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: wfaulk]
wfaulk carpal tunnel Registered: 25/12/2000 Posts: 16706 Loc: Raleigh, NC US	Oh, I remember. Ghostscript has a driver called "mswinpr2" that writes, I guess, to Windows' internal printer language. _________________________ Bitt Faulk
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#296346 - 04/04/2007 05:40 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: ShadowMan]
LittleBlueThing addict Registered: 11/01/2002 Posts: 612 Loc: Reading, UK	It may be less hassle to buy a cheap but well supported printer - maybe even 2nd hand off eBay? I guess it depends what you want it for... _________________________ LittleBlueThing Running twin 30's
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#296347 - 05/04/2007 23:14 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: wfaulk]
ShadowMan addict Registered: 09/06/1999 Posts: 558 Loc: Newfoundland, Canada	Ok, I'm lost. So far I've downloaded and installed GS 8.56 as well as GSView (I like GUIs). Now what? I've played with GSView and read on the site you linked to but I cannot figure out what to do. I have my Dell printer shared and I try to setup a printer on the Linux box but when I send a test page nothign happens. On the linux box I choose new printer. Then I select network printer and choose Windows Printer (SMB). For the host I type the name of my XP box (botman) and the Printer (Dell). No username and password. I then choose Generic for the manufacturer, and PostScript Printer for the model. The printer shows up as "ready" on the Linux box, but I can't get anything to come out. On the printer properties (Linux) there is an option under advanced for GhostScript pre-filtering. No matter what I choose I have no success. It seems to me that I am not linking Ghostscript and the printer on the xp box, or I am not creating a "fake" printer on the XP box. Any advice? Rene P.S. Thanks so far!!! I really want to convert her to Linux only! P.P.S. My next stop tonight or tomorrow will be the Ubuntu forums. _________________________ 12 gig empeg Mark II, SN: 080000101 30 gig RioCar SN: 30103114 My blog
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#296348 - 05/04/2007 23:20 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: ShadowMan]
wfaulk carpal tunnel Registered: 25/12/2000 Posts: 16706 Loc: Raleigh, NC US	You need to install that RedMon software. It allows you to create a printer where the output is to a program instead of to a printer. Then you need to create such a printer and have the output go to ghostscript and then have ghostscript send its output to the real Windows printer via the ghostscript driver I mentioned above. Then share that new printer and have your Linux machine print to it as a PostScript device. If you need more detail, let me know and I'll give you explicit instructions. _________________________ Bitt Faulk
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#296349 - 05/04/2007 23:31 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: wfaulk]
ShadowMan addict Registered: 09/06/1999 Posts: 558 Loc: Newfoundland, Canada	Quote: If you need more detail, let me know and I'll give you explicit instructions. Downloaded, installed, and reading the help and examples.... more instructions would be nice. This is an ugly bit of software. I skipped that post after I read your follow up post thinking that you made a mistake suggesting redmon and instead meant mswinpr2. My bad. Thanks again! Rene _________________________ 12 gig empeg Mark II, SN: 080000101 30 gig RioCar SN: 30103114 My blog
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#296350 - 05/04/2007 23:50 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: wfaulk]
ShadowMan addict Registered: 09/06/1999 Posts: 558 Loc: Newfoundland, Canada	I went through the examples setting up as close to the instructions as I could substituting my information where needed... but still no print. The printers on my XP box always show no print jobs as if the job doesn't leave the Linux box and get to mine. I'm gone to bed now... I'll do some more digging tomorrow possibly. Thanks again! Rene _________________________ 12 gig empeg Mark II, SN: 080000101 30 gig RioCar SN: 30103114 My blog
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#296351 - 06/04/2007 00:26 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: ShadowMan]
wfaulk carpal tunnel Registered: 25/12/2000 Posts: 16706 Loc: Raleigh, NC US	Unfortunately, I don't have the ability right now to make my environment equivalent to yours, but basically: Install RedMon Start the "Add Printer Wizard" You want to add a "local printer" (don't autodetect) Create a new port of type "Redirected Port" named RPT1: For the printer type, select the Apple LaserWriter II NT (it's just a generic PostScript printer) Name the printer whatever you want, but keep in mind that this is the one you will be printing to from Linux. Maybe name it the same as the real printer but put "(PS)" after it or something. If you want to print via lpd for some reason, only use alphanumerics and no spaces in the name You probably don't want it to be the default printer You do want to share the printer. The same name as the internal name is probably fine Finish the wizard. You don't want to print a test page. Open your printers control panel, select the printer you just made, right click it and select Properties. Click on the Ports tab, make sure that RPT1: is selected and click "Configure Port" In the first field, enter the path to the gs binary (gswin32c.exe or something like that) In the arguments field, enter: Code: -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER -dNoCancel -sDEVICE=mswinpr2 -sOutputFile="%printer%realprinter" (where "realprinter" is the name of the real printer as shown in the Printers control panel) For Output, "Program handles output" Everything else should be defaults That should be it for setup. First see if it works from within Windows. Try printing a test page. If it doesn't work at this point, there's something wrong with the configuration. Using the logfile option in the port configuration might help figure this out. If it does work from within Windows, try printing to it from Linux. (I'd delete the old printer you configured and start over.) SMB printing should be fine. If it doesn't print at this point and it did from within Windows, it's probably because the user that it gets run as for a network job doesn't know about the real printer. I'm going to cross my fingers that this is not the case for you, because I don't remember how to solve this problem off the top of my head. _________________________ Bitt Faulk
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#296352 - 06/04/2007 00:36 Re: Linux Printing Issue [Re: wfaulk]
wfaulk carpal tunnel Registered: 25/12/2000 Posts: 16706 Loc: Raleigh, NC US	Anyway, the basic notion of what you're accomplishing here is that you're creating a virtual printer that accepts PostScript code. When it receives the PostScript, instead of sending it to a hardware printer, it sends it to the ghostscript program. Ghostscript knows how to process PostScript and it takes the code that its sent and translates it into something else, which in this case is the Windows internal printer language. When it does so, it sends it directly to the printer that you already have installed. (The basic idea with that is that Internet Explorer, Word, Notepad, etc. don't know anything about your printer or any other printer. They just tell the printer driver what to print and the printer driver translates it into a language that the printer can understand. That's all that ghostscript is doing, too, it's just doing it because another driver ran it, rather than you running it because you double-clicked on it and selected File->Print.) I'm telling you this in the hopes that an understanding of what's going on will help you figure out where any troubles you might encounter lie. I'll admit that this is something of a difficult process, but I had zero trouble with it once I got it set up and working. _________________________ Bitt Faulk
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