Topic: HP Deskjet printer for apple mac printing

[Wayne]

I configured ghostscript and apsfilter using Robert van den Aker's guide. http://www.robert2.dds.nl/howtos/apsfilter-howto.html and also referenced - http://www.giub.unibe.ch/~eugster/appleprint.html
I don't get a printer in the apple chooser when I select the laserwriter. When I issue a "nbplkup" command it doesn't list the printer I setup. When I do a "papstatus -p pshpdjet" the error message returned is "NBP Lookup failed". I've restarted the atalk services after the installation and restarted the Mac without success.
The printer works with a windows client in raw mode. The Mac can access the file shares normally.
Can someone suggest where I should look?

Thankyou,
  Wayne..

[Wayne]

I found this entry when in my messages LOG.

Jul  9 04:53:14 smith papd[1263]: can't register HP Deskjet with Post Script support:LaserWriter@*

It could be the start of the problem.

[robert]

Wayne wrote:
>
> I found this entry when in my messages LOG.
>
> Jul  9 04:53:14 smith papd[1263]: can't register HP Deskjet
> with Post Script support:LaserWriter@*
>
> It could be the start of the problem.

Ah, there's the rub. You need to stay within 32 characters for the printer description or papd will fail to register the printer.
Remove the printer in the server-manager and recreate with a briefer description. Wait for appletalk to settle down (it takes its time) and see if nbplkup lists the printer. If it doesn't, restart appletalk as root:
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/atalk restart
Allow to simmer for a while and have another peek at nbplkup.

[Wayne]

Thankyou very much. The extra 2 characters in the description killed it. I've recreated the printer with a brief description and it works a treat. I've choosen a generic PS printer but it's black and white. What would be a good choice for colour support?

Thankyou,
  Wayne..

[robert]

Wayne wrote:
>
> I've choosen a generic PS
> printer but it's black and white. What would be a good choice
> for colour support?
>
First you'll need to ascertain that the ghostscript driver supports color printing. I believe the apsfilter test page will test for this. If you use Charlie Brady's minimal ghostscript RPM, your choice of drivers is somewhat limited. You may have more luck with a standard RedHat include-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ghostscript RPM. Expect to install a boatload of dependencies for that.
I'm not sure what you need to do on the Mac end of things (I use a B&W DeskJet 400). I would simply try all settings with the word 'Color' in it. Or is that approach too simple-minded?

[Wayne]

> Wayne wrote:
> >
> > I've choosen a generic PS
> > printer but it's black and white. What would be a good choice
> > for colour support?
> >
> First you'll need to ascertain that the ghostscript driver
> supports color printing. I believe the apsfilter test page
> will test for this. If you use Charlie Brady's minimal
> ghostscript RPM, your choice of drivers is somewhat limited.

The apsfilter test page didn't print but both the PC (raw printing) and mac (postscript) printing work. The ghostscript driver is a cdj690 which is my printer. I've choosen the Laserwriter colour 12/600PS driver on the Mac (there is only one other colour PS printer, the LW 12/660PS). I looked for an option on the Mac to see if the print could be restricted to B/W but it didn't appear to have any. I'm quite impressed by the apsfilter script and documentation for integrating the Apple postscript printing on E-Smith.