CUPS Settings for HP500?

[johnpipe108]

I'm having trouble getting my HP500 set up under CUPS. I'm not certain of the settings for Device, so have tried "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"; the HP500 is connected to the 1st parallel port. For the Device URI, I tried the same setting from CUPS on my 2.2 kernel RH6.1 CUPS setting, "parallel://dev/lp0".  For the driver I tried HP DeskJet 500 Foomatic/hpijs(en), but the system reported "printer not connected" error, however the printer is connected, works fine under RH.

I've been trying other combinations, and can't even remember one from another by now, no luck!

I tried the other HP500 drivers, but the result is the same.

Anyone know how to make the correct settings for this printer?

Thanks,

Johnpipe

[johnpipe108]

This has been a bit confusing; the HP500 is connected to the parallel port, but CUPS lists the parallel port as EPSON and CANON, and identifies finding there these two NON EXISTANT printers! The only way to configure the printer was to pick one of these ports from the drop down list, despite their (apparently default) mis-association by cups, and then browse for a ppd file, as picking the parallel port automatically limits the drop-down list to drivers for these CANON and EPSON printers! There doesn't seem to be any straightforward way, if any, to fix this CUPS mis-configuration (my older CUPS on RH6.1 doesn't have this odd behavior).  Fortunately, I had a good ppd file for the HP500 on my RH6.1 partition, and copied it into /etc/cups/ppd/, and was then able to choose it by browsing from the CUPS web interface after choosing one of the two entries for "Parallel port #1". The printing now works, the test print confirms.

John

[Freston]

I did notice that I had to install hplip manually after installing Vector. Just cups isn't enough. Did you install hplip or hpijs?

Also, I don't know who thought of it... :-p but printer management is accessed via the browser :-s

Have you typed this in your browser?

Code:

localhost:631

After installing the driver, this should give you access. Here[/ulr] I believe your device is listed as supported, is it the Deskjet 500?

[url=http://hplip.sourceforge.net/downloads.html]Here you can download the driver, although I do believe the repo's got one. slapt-get gives hplip 1.6.7, the downloadable tarball is version 2.7.7.... Oh? never noticed that before...

Anyway, I hope this helps.

[Colonel Panic]

I've had the same problem as foxy; the printer (an HP500) was shown as being installed and yet nothing happened when I clicked on the "print" button in Abiword.

Any help would be appreciated (I do have HPLIP installed btw).

Regards,

Colonel Panic.

[JohnB316]

Can you clarify whether you have an HP DesignJet 500, an HP PSC 500, OfficeJet 500, or a DeskJet 500? Given that I've listed four different HP printers that have "500" as the model number, we need to know which specific type of printer you have so that we can better help both of you.

Thanks,
John

[Colonel Panic]

Thanks for replying John. My printer is an HP Deskjet 500 mono from the early 90s, one of the old veteran DOS printers (even Wordstar made drivers for it).

[Colonel Panic]

Sorry to have to report that I'm happily printing away - in another distro (Zenwalk), using CUPS and  the Gimp Print driver for my printer - but I'd rather give you the chance to sort out any bugs Vector may have with printing through CUPS (I'm not competent yet to use anything else to print with) than stay quiet about this. And whilst I accept I have no right to assistance, I really do need to print at the moment so I had to install something that I could get working fairly quickly.

Anyway, in most respects I prefer Vector to Zenwalk, but that's a topic for another day and perhaps another thread.

[lagagnon]

... but I'd rather give you the chance to sort out any bugs Vector may have with printing through CUPS (I'm not competent yet to use anything else to print with) than stay quiet about this.

I don't see any bugs in the VL CUPS system. I set up an HP Deskjet 500 printer with VL5.8GOLD for a client of mine just the other day and it worked fine. I would suggest either:
1) you did not enable the Parallel Port service when you installed VL
2) you did not choose the correct port during CUPS config.

Start with this: "dmesg | grep lp0". You should see output something like this:
lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
lp0: console ready

Then "ls -al /etc/rc.d/rc.parallel". You should see output exactly like this:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1148 2006-10-18 23:38 /etc/rc.d/rc.parallel*
(especially the x's in the first columns. If not, you did not enable parallel during the install and you need to do VASM, SUPER, SERVICE, HWSET, and enable the Parallel Service.

Then during CUPS printer config, under the "Device" drop-down list make sure you choose "LPT#1".
 

[Colonel Panic]

Thanks for replying Lagagnon. I probably didn't enable parallel port services in Vector as you say, I think I got the port number right.

I've had CUPS working in Vector 5.1, it's just 5.8 I couldn't manage. I'll give it another try soon when I've got more time.

Best,

Colonel Panic

[Colonel Panic]

I've set up CUPS now in Vector as well (taking care to enable the parallel ports on setup) and it works fine. Sorry for any criticism of Vector here, implied or otherwise.