Thanks to all who offered advice. Steve's suggestion led me on a
path where I happened to bump across someone else who had had the
same problem. The solution is that (for some reason I don't
understand), the printer needs to be turned OFF while the computer
boots. Both cases involved an Epson Stylus and Debian potato.
Thanks again,
Brian
On 2001.09.18 17:34:59 -0400 Stephen Gran wrote:
> Thus spake Brian J . Dumont:
> >
> > On 2001.09.17 20:00:48 -0400 Duncan Findlay wrote:
> > > On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 02:57:29PM -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> > > > on Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 10:18:11PM -0400, Brian J . Dumont
> > > ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm having some difficulty printing to my new printer. I have a
> > > > > P2-333 based system running Debian 2.2r2, using the default
> > > > > 2.2.17 kernel. I recently bought an Epson Stylus Color 777 and
> > > > > am trying to get it running (through the parallel port). I have
> > > > > printed when booted to Win95 without problem, so I know the
> hardware
> > > > > is fine.
> > > >
> > > > Have you checked whether or not it's a WinPrinter? I'm unfamiliar
> with
> > > > your hardware, but there are systems that are generally not usable
> > > under
> > > > GNU/Linux.
> > > >
> > > > Your best bet is to look up the device specifically on Google using
> > > > 'linux' as a keyword.
> > >
> > > If you hardware is compatible, chances are apsfilter will be able to
> help
> > > you out. (I found much easier to set up than magicfilter)
> > >
> > > apt-get install apsfilter
> >
> > I've checked, and I'm pretty sure it's not a Winprinter ... the
> > ghostscript site I found specifically says that this printer works
> > "perfectly" with gs.
> >
> > I've also tried setting up apsfilter, which gave no errors but
> > didn't successfully print the test page. The difficulty lies at a
> > level below lpd or apsfilter. Regardless of whether lpd is running
> > I should still be able to print a text file by cat'ing it to the
> > device, right?
> >
> > I'm wondering if it might be due to the fact that the port has no DMA
> > assigned. The /proc/parport/0/hardware file is:
> >
> > base: 0x378
> > irq: 7
> > dma: none
> > modes: SPP,ECP,ECPEPP,ECPPS2
> >
> > I have no idea, however, how to tell it to use DMA3 ... :(
> >
> > any ideas?
> You can append that in lilo.conf -
> append=/dev/lp0 0x378,7,3
> or something - check with others before doing that, because I'm not sure
> I'm right about the syntax. The other thing is that the printer doesn't
> *need* to use DMA - most use polling by default and work just fine.
> It's a question of CPU overhead, AFAIK. Some newer printers do use a
> DMA setting for faster results, but I don't know if yours is one of
> these. When you cat foo.txt > /dev/lp0, what happens? Does it attempt
> to print, but spit out a blank page, or does it just fail silently. If
> it's the first, it may be at the filter level. If it's the second, I'm
> not sure where he problem is. It may take more digging.
> Good luck,
> Steve
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian J. Dumont - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.ameritech.net/users/bdumont-----------------------------------------------------------------------
