Topic: HP720C as a network printer

[Duncan]

I have an HP720C printer which I would like to plug in to the e-smith server for print sharing. It isn't a postscript printer and I don't know how to set up the /etc/printcap file properly so whenever I try to print the server just ignores it. Anyone out there able to help me?

[Charlie Brady]

Duncan wrote:

> I have an HP720C printer which I would like to plug in to the
> e-smith server for print sharing. It isn't a postscript printer

The type of printer is irrelevant as far as the e-smith server is
concerned.

> and I don't know how to set up the /etc/printcap file properly

You don't need to set up /etc/printcap, the e-smith manager does
that for you. You should not make manual changes to /etc/printcap.

> so whenever I try to print the server just ignores it.

You will need to have the correct print drivers installed on
your client machines. The e-smith server just relays bytes from
client to the printer. It should do that if you have selected the correct
parallel port name, and if your hardware works.

Regards

Charlie

[milanuk]

The HP 720/722c series of printers is one ongoing headache for the linux community.  The printers work pretty good, the price was right, and the name brand helped sell alot of them.  but they use a proprietary win-printer driver, which HP, despite it's lipservice to Linux support, still holds close.  There has been an ongoing effort to reverse engineer the drivers for this printer, and currently I believe it supports 600x600 color.  I haven't used e-smith yet, but on a regular RedHat install, w/ printtools and rhs-printfilters installed, just run /usr/sbin/printtool as root from a command line.  A gui configuration dialog should pop up, and it makes it about as easy as it gets to set up a Linux printer.

Monte

[Tim]

Your other option of course could be to attach the 720 to a box running Mandrake 7.2 which actually configures the printer to work (perfectly I might add) from install. just select the driver in the add printer dialog during install and you're away. Unfortunately I too was conned by HP with their 700 series printers being the (not so) proud owner of a 710c, but now I'm perfectly happy. Sure, I haven't got it installed on my e-smith box, but I can print to it from any client now. Previously it was installed on a windows box but Samba still struggles to print to it via a windows share, this way works much better.