HP OfficeJet and Linux -- a mini HOW-TO / short-story.
- From: "Nathan Moschkin" <ironywrit@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:27:55 GMT
There isn't, exactly, an easy way to go about doing this, from what I've
experienced when installing an OfficeJet... But it IS possible.
But first, a very personal introduction of how this all came about:
---
Imagine a dilemma of many facets of the human condition:
We have 5 computers in the house. 2 laptops running various flavors of XP.
2 desktops running XP Pro, each... and then this sad little Linux box,
devoid of all purpose... it was once my pop's machine, but the XP drive got
corrupted some how. ... It was to be the reincarnation of my last Linux box
from when we had a cable modem... which I built out of a 2.0.x kernel on a
200 mhz system with multi-homed configuration. ...
....a Debian Linux box, which since we got FiOS 15MB service, simply cannot
keep up; it can't really handle the bandwidth with two measly 100MB cards on
a 2.4 ghz system. So we bought a wireless router (top of the line,
firewall, echo-concentration reception, everything)... and just decided to
use that for our internet connection.
Now, my mother has a b/w laser printer (yes I am currently living with my
mother: it's a long story; hopefully, I won't be here for long... except
that she's been through some turmoil with pops, and my brothers are both
having their lives so I figure: hey; rent's cheap, she needs assistance...)
The b/w laser's installed on the far corner office desktop XP (her
work-at-home PC), and we can usually print from that as long as she's not
hooked up to the IP-Tunnel software her company gave her so that she could
work from home.
But then, one day, in the midst of all this worldly drama, she had to
contend with insurance inspectors because she is fighting with the bank to
release the rest of her insurance claim money from the aftermath of
hurricans Charley, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne (welcome to Tampa Bay)... So,
she needed to print off color photographs for the insurance company.
Well... Our color printer was attached to an outdated Debian box... a
/stable version, if you will, that didn't support all the great things that
the new version supported, including hplip. So... after a brief inspection
noting that the XP partition on the Linux box had become irreperably
damaged, somehow... I reformatted the entire thing...
--- what happened next was sheer determination.
I managed the excessively complicated feat of getting Debian Linux /unstable
version to install from a /stable CD-ROM network distribution (xorg/X11,
Gnome, KDE, all that)... then, I got the Debian system to share (to a
network of Windows systems) a printer... but not just any printer, a
high-quality photo-realistic color printer and multi-function fax/scanner...
the HP Deskjet 6210, and I got the Windows systems to use their own drivers
and I can print photo-quality from anywhere in my house.
I also threw in a 35 gigabyte share file for my mom to offload some stuff
onto.
Now we have five complete systems. 2 desktop XPs, 2 laptop XPs and a desktop
Linux box (built out of a Compaq 2.4 ghz factory PC).
Oh, get this: I downloaded the entire 980 MB install package in 15 minutes.
Average throughput? 1920 kBytes/s.
That's my T1 / FiOS connection. I was wondering if I was ever really
getting that speed because Windows throttles back what it receives at one
time. so I can start with an 800 kB/s burst but by the end of the download
it's dwindled to like 200. But not on Linux, it pulls the whole bandwidth.
A friend from school, told me to disable QoS service, and I did get much
better throughput, afterward, but NOTHING like I get from my Linux box.
But, Windows does it per-socket, so if I have 18 downloads going, they all
pull at about 100-200 kBytes/s . at once, so I know that's taking advantage
of my true bandwidth. But it sure would be nice to be able to download and
install the FireFox updates in 1 second like I can on Linux instead of 2
minutes on XP.
---
After tweaking and re-installing several things (big bugs in the current
version: XFCE doesn't install properly, several libraries are missing,
defoma scripts have errors), I finally got my system up.
I accessed CUPS web-administration ... chose the 6200 series driver
(foomatic)... (don't install hpoj, ever)... I used foomatic-gui to check and
configure the printer, afterward... only big problem I see is that KDE
doesn't recognize the CUPS system that is running.
But after I had gotten through all that with a combination of GNOME and KDE
tools, and had printed a test page (in color), I decided the easiest route,
for sharing was to log into KDE and select Settings->Internet -
Networking->Samba.
I became the super user, and edited all of the pertinent information (HINT:
do NOT select "Share All Printers" it won't work).
.... The big problem was getting the Windows XP systems to use the correct
drivers. It wouldn't take the 6200 series install disk drivers and add
them.
What we did is we installed all the drivers onto an XP machine... in this
case it happened to be a laptop machine, which made it inconvenient for us
to share the printer from that machine... and then we shared that printer
and connected to it from every other machine in the house to download the
correct drivers.
Then, when we connected to the printer from the Linux Box, we selected bogus
drivers (I chose the standard HP Officejet driver), and then, once the
printer was connected, we went into Control Panel -> Printers and Faxes...
selected the printer, right-clicked on it, selected Properties, went to
Advanced tab, and where it asks for a driver, we clicked down and selected
the appropriate one.
It took a surprisingly long amount of time for everything to decide what to
do, after that (15 seconds)... but then it was fully recognized, and we were
able to print test-pages in full color, at full quality from the XP boxes.
I know there's a way for the drivers to be there and readily available for
download from the Linux box, but I didn't exactly know where they were all
supposed to go, or exactly which files to copy, and this was the quickest
way to the solution. No one has yet documented the drivers-directory for
use with Linux vis a vis the HP Officejet.
.
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