Printing in Linux w/ HP Deskjet 660Cse's?

Jason Osborne asks: "There is one thing though Windows seems to excel at and that's printing. I have an HP Deskjet 660Cse and I can't get it to print correctly. I have searched the Internet endlessly and have tried many filters and daemons including both the original BSD print daemon and the somewhat newer LPRng daemon. I have seen many filters designed for HP Deskjet printers, it seems none will work for me. Does anyone have any information or filters on/for printing in Linux with HP Deskjets that may help? Are there any future development plans by HP or the Linux Development Team for any additional and more up to date information and drivers for the HP Deskjet 660Cse serious and other such 'Made for Windows' type printers? "

My take is that if the printer says 'Made for Windows' on it, then it's a closed architecture and likely that its specs will be unavailable to anyone without a hefty price-tag and an NDA. Does the HP 660 series fall under this category? I miss the days when hardware manufacturers actually cared if their products were getting used by everyone as opposed to everyone running a particular operating system. Something is inherently backward in how things stand today.

About HP printing

[gavinhall]

Posted by karlo:

First of all you must set up Ghostscript.
Download the newest Alladin Ghostscript.
There's an excellent hpdj patch for newer HP Deskjets at
ftp://ftp.pdb.sni.de/pub/utilities/misc/
Download it an follow the instructions.
Also there is a djetool program which uses features of that patch at
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/printing /
I have HP690C and it works well but I'm not sure if it will works well with your "se" printer.

/dev/lp0

[timw]

It's the other way around actually. If 2.0.x had lp1 as the only parallel port, it'll be lp0 in 2.2.x.

Tim.
*/

A few more tricks up the sleeve.

[JoelG]

I myself have successfully used the HP Deskjet 660C printer in linux without any hitches. One thing you might try is typing dmesg and look at which lp* device it was installed on. The 2.2 kernels use a new parallel port driver which usually sets the printer to lp1 instead of lp0. If that is the case then edit /etc/printcap and change the line specifying the device you wish to use to lp1 instead of lp0. A good way of testing your printer for functionality is to cat plaintextfile >> /etc/lp*. If that works then you are pretty much set.

Printing in the "unix" world is a bit different.

[DrZaius]

Unlike the Windows/Mac et cetra way of doing things, you will have to use your hacking skills to get your printer working.

Keep in mind you must format your document for printing. That is, after you finishing your document you must convert it to postscript. Postscript (correct me if I am wrong) was/is a standard that I believe adobe developed. It eventually became the standard for awhile (I think it was something like this, for the most part I am talking out of my ass). For the most part, if you printer has PostScript capabilities, you can just (at the lowest levels) "cat file.ps >> /dev/lp0" and get full quality (as defined by your document).

Things were all good in the printing world.

Then, all of these glorious windows printers came along. Nobody had to conform to standards any longer, thanks to the MS beast.

This is where ghostscript comes in. If ghostscript supports your printer you can just take that Post Script file and run it through Ghostscript. Now this file is in your printer's language, which can be dumped to /dev/lp0.

All this said, now comes the filters. You have to fondle your printcap so that, if you do not wish to manually go through the ghostscript process, the lpd can intercept the .ps files and automagically do the conversions for you.

Anyways, I must go and eat dinner :)

Better / Faster Ghostview drivers...

[Audin]

I have an HP694C printer which I bought during my Windows days.... After moving to Linux, I was quite dissapointed with the print quality and speed of the default Ghostscript driver...after playing around with both the GNU and the comerical versions (which one can do for quite a long time, as just about every HP LaserJet and Deskjet driver will work with this printer), I was able to find some third party drivers...

As I was mainly intested in regaining speed in draft mode, I ended up using the driver here:

ftp://ftp.pdb.sni.de/pub/utilities/misc/

This driver is very fast in draft mode (faster then the windows driver, in fact)...and is highly configurable. Its biggest problem is that it doesn't do Floyd Steinberg dithering...so while text looks quite nice, graphics don't look so hot...

I also found one here:

http://www.erdw.ethz.ch/~bonk/hp850/hp850.html

I never got around to testing this one, though... It is supposed to support the Photo Ret1 and 2 stuff, though...

Of course, you have to patch ghostscript to get either of these to work...but since the default drivers are so bad, it's probably worth it...

Photo printers?

[webster]

How did you set up your Linux system to run your Epson photo printer? The devices.html page does not list any six-color printers that I could see, and certainly none of the Epson photo printers. I have two photo printers, and would love to use one of them on Linux, but have had no luck.

[e-mail]

A note on "se"...

[Hutta]

Not sure what se stands for exactly (although
I'd assume "Special Edition"), but the hardware
is exaclty the same. Usually, HP doesn't even
put "SE" on the machine itself. The box just
has something additional thrown inside. (Disney
software and such).

There's also a designation for models sold at
Price Club-ish places, that indicates a lack of
all that additional software and such. They're
usually $20 or so cheaper.

Ahh... And I thought a year and a half in retail
taught me nothing.