Subject: Re: Unable to print to parallel port printer
To: None <netbsd-help@netbsd.org>
From: Christoph Leuzinger <chris+ml@westworks.ch>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 04/20/2005 18:59:30
James K. Lowden wrote:
> I don't see why the printer would eject the page; it might just be 
> waiting
> for more data.  If you press the button on the printer, does it print? 
>  If
> you send it a form feed (^L), maybe the magic page will jump out.

This worked for me, thanks.

Now I'd like to use CUPS on that machine. So I went right ahead and 
performed the follwing steps (I post them here so somebody with the 
same problem might find it in the archives):

1) Installed cups, ghostscript-esp and hpijs from pkgsrc-2005Q1
2) Installed foomatic-filters and foomatic-filters-cups from 
pkgsrc/wip, as cups keeps complaining about 
/usr/pkg/libexec/cups/foomatic-rip not being available
3) Gunzipped and copied the PPD file from ${PREFIX}/share/ppd/ to 
${PREFIX}/share/cups/model/ (otherwise CUPS won't find it)
4) (re)started cups: /etc/rc.d/cups restart
5) Added a new printer and set it to use "Parallel Port #1 (polled)" 
(/dev/lpa0); using /dev/lpt0 causes the printer to sit there forever 
without printing even a single line (see also 
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2000/01/17/0012.html)

This worked for me on NetBSD-2.0.2/i386 GENERIC.

It also played around with the EPP/ECP settings in the BIOS and tried 
lpt0 at ppbus(4)/atppc(4). When I booted the new kernel there was lots 
of debug output and one message that showed that my printer had been 
identified correctly. However, trying to print something would lock up 
the system for a few seconds and then result in an I/O error.

Regards,
Christoph