The Ultimate Answer to "Unsupported" Printers?

[williamscody]

Hello all -

I found a very interesting website that's providing a free, very comprehensive Linux printer driver called Gimp-Print 4.2. Dozens of printers of all sorts are supported. The driver includes source code, lots of documentation, and all sorts of very technical stuff.

MacNN seems to think this can be "easily" adapted to OS X because it's "FreeBSD compatible." It's beyond my capabilities, but perhaps someone more familiar with Unix could crank out an OS X-ready version.

Here's the link: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

I'd bet whomever gets this working for OS X will have a statue erected in their honor. ;)

[Chas]

Didn't you post this to MacSlash or something? I saw your tip posted somewhere, and looked at their drivers. At first I thought they wouldn't work, but then, I thought maybe you could set up a local LPR spooler using this gadget. But I have only just begun to investigate the drivers. This might really work for me, I have a GeeThree Stealth Serial Port, and it would probably be easy to implement this as a serial driver rather than futzing with USB.

Oh boy do I want this. My Epson 1520 has been sitting idle since I converted to MacOS X, and gimp-print supports the 1520. But I'd rather have official Epson drivers, since they are very good at supporting ColorSync. If I want to do color-accurate printing, I have to reboot into MacOS 9. Argh!

[williamscody]

Chas, I haven't posted this before. I found the link on MacNN's OS X section. I'm running an Epson 850, and would love to get it functioning under OS X.

Kudos to you for looking into this further.

[Chas]

I must have seen this story on MacNN like you did, and I remember it piqued my interest. Anyway, I checked further, it looks like gimp-print is a gimp-only plugin, but the authors claim this new release moved all gimp-specific code out of the core engine so that it could be ported for use with ghostscript or other print packages. I'm not sure how hard this would be, or what advantages it would offer over ghostscript alone.
It is possible that ghostscript alone would provide sufficient services to drive inkjets. I have to install ghostscript and see how well it works, perhaps just ghostscript alone has the ability to drive my 1520 from my serial port. There's a port of ghostscript available through fink, it's easy to install but I haven't played with it yet. You really should check out fink at fink.sourceforge.net. (http://fink.sourceforge.net) Fink allows you to install X Windows and other complex unix apps as precompiled binaries.

[williamscody]

Thanks for the fink tip. I'm adding it to my favorites. Good luck on getting Gimp-Print going!

[balthisar]

Don't worry, I never tire of pointing out this:

http://homepage.mac.com/balthisar/HPNetworkInkjet.sit

Includes instructions for setting up GhostScript WITH built-in gimp-print support -- no The Gimp required!

[Chas]

Thanks balthazar for that document, I'm going through it now and it has a few pointers in the right direction. BTW, I tried to use Fink and dselect to install the AFX-Ghostscript 7, but it only seems to want to install Ghostscript6. I'll see if I can deinstall it and get a proper version installed.

With only minimal fiddling in ghostscript6, I got gv running nicely. However, I'm totally stuck setting up LPR. I have a G3 desktop machine with a "GeeThree Stealth Serial Port" instead of the modem port. They have MacOS X drivers, I installed them and it appears as /dec/cu.modem (I think that's the right port). Anyway, I am stumped on lpr and lpd, I'm hacking away at the printcap but no success so far.

[txiki]

hi

i haven't been able to print to my photo ex since x, only generating a pdf file and then opening with acrobat launched in classic mode. but the result doesn't have enough quality.

has anyone of you been able to print to the ex with any of the ways talked about here? i don't know unix so i'm a little bit lost.

thank you.

:confused:

[moyashi]

woooo .... if this works ... please post back ... I'M already begging.

pm-750c with geethree serial port ... :(

[WillyT]

There was a post on this site Dec 21, 2001 titled .Setting up lpd printing on OS X (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011221103321129) in the UN*X section.



It only works with printers that understand postscript and/or pdf.
And you must have a driver installed thru Print Center.

It uses the Print terminal command.

My HP G85 understands pdf so it almost works, but not from The Gimp as its ps only

[williamscody]

Balthisar,

I took the time and effort to carefully work through your suggested procedure, and voila. I am VERY pleased to announce that my Epson Stylus Color 850 works beautifully from OS X.

I even created three versions of the directory services printers (draft, HQ, and Photo), and I can easily switch between my most common resolution and media jobs.

Readers, it's not difficult. Blthisar's documentation is excellent, and holds your hand every step of the way.

Bravo, sir! At the very least you warrant a small statue or a plaque.

:D

[txiki]

Hi again

I've been trying the balthizar way, just to play with it because my epson ex is not networked but usb'd. I've have also tried the hacking-a-similar-printer-driver but with no luck.

Has someone had any look with a usb'd printer?

I think I'm gonna dessist and go buy a new printer.

Thanks.

[Chas]

I guess I should report back too.. I tried "the balthazar way" and got only mixed results. My 1520 can connect serial or USB (I have a GeeThree serial port, it has real macOS X drivers). I got the printer to run via serial LPR, but the drivers printed garbage chars. Since the 1520 is a wide carriage printer, and I was just testing on typing paper, it sprayed ink all over the carriage, printing beyond the end of the sheet of paper. I could probably debug this, but since it isn't clear where the transmission error lies (could be serial port speed, handshaking, etc) and since errors result in ink sprayed all over my platen (and subsequent cleanup with QTips) I decided not to fiddle with it. If this was a plain old letter-size printer, it wouldn't have this problem and I'd pursue it further.
But there is hope. Balthazar's method is based on CUPS, the Common Unix Printing Environment. News is all over the Mac Web about Apple officially licensing CUPS, it will become part of MacOS X. So congrats to Balthazar for showing Apple the way. CUPS will allow MacOS X to print to almost anything. If Apple can graft Colorsync onto CUPS, it will be awesome.

[kkuiwong]

Anyone has idea of when Mac OS X will include CUPS?

[TommyWillB]

I completely unerstand this concept of intercepting the print job on the way to the printer in order to convert the postscript output to something that the printer can understand. (Isn't that all the old LaserWriter 8 driver did?... wasn't it just a generic postscript to ? converter?)

However I don't dare try this! I'm working hard to not hack this sytem and to keep it as "out of box" as possible... So when it suggest rolling back components to 10.0.4 I just won't do it.

Can't one of you brilliant programmers just productized this into a nice GUI app that the rest of us poor slobs can use? (Why can't Apple just do another generic LaserWriter 8 type of driver?... or is that what CUPS is?)