Re: Why is Firefox printing in Linux so slow?

usenet.1.massysett_at_spamgourmet.com
Date: 10/14/05 

Date: 14 Oct 2005 13:56:10 -0700

My problem is now SOLVED.

I examined the mime.types file in /etc/cups. It turns out that
mime.types had a different file type for "mozilla-ps" than for regular
"postscript." Thus Firefox printouts were getting typed at
"mozilla-ps."

mime.convs requires "mozilla-ps" files to be filtered through
"pswrite." I still do not know what pswrite is; seems to have something
to do with Ghostscript? At any rate, I figured, why on earth are
PostScript files from Mozilla getting filtered? They're
PostScript--send them to pstops and then send them to the printer!!

So I simply commented out the "mozilla-ps" lines in the mime.types
file. Now Mozilla files print out instantaneously.

I am curious as to what on earth pswrite is and why it was taking SO
LONG to run it on my system, but that can wait for another day.

Thanks everybody for the tips!
Omari

usenet.1.massysett@spamgourmet.com wrote:
> I am wondering why printing in Firefox in Linux on a PostScript printer
> takes so long.
>
> Here is my setup: SuSE 10.0 using CUPS; Brother HL-5150D laser printer
> (which is a native PostScript printer) hooked up via USB; recent
> Firefox (either 1.0.6 or 1.0.7); PPD file from the Brother CD that
> comes with the printer.
>
> When I used this printer from Windows XP to print pages from Firefox,
> pages would start emerging from the printer within seconds after I
> clicked "print." This was true with both the Brother PCL Windows driver
> and the Brother PostScript Windows driver. After printing started, the
> pages would continue to emerge at top speed until all the pages were
> printed.
>
> Then I tried the new SuSE. Firefox printing is extremely slow. Even
> when printing relatively simple webpages (e.g. a newspaper article from
> washingtonpost.com after clicking on "Print this article" in the
> webpage, which leaves only one ad in the printout) it can take over two
> minutes for printing to even begin. After I click on "Print" in
> Firefox, Firefox quickly completes its printing process, handing the
> job off to the print spooler and allowing me to continue web browsing.
> (This process is complete in, say, two seconds.) This also causes the
> light on the printer to turn from green to amber (indicating that it is
> receiving data.) The light will flash, indicating data is coming in,
> and the printer will make some warming-up sounds.
>
> The delay comes in at this step. The printer will sit there for several
> minutes, with the light flashing, but printing nothing. After printing
> begins, the printer will print a single page, and then there is another
> pause of a minute or so until the next page comes out. These pauses
> continue until printing is complete.
>
> I know Firefox uses lpr by default, so I got it to use KPrinter by
> following the directions here:
>
> http://www.granneman.com/webdev/browsers/mozillafirefoxnetscape/linuxspecific/kdeprintinginmozilla/
>
> When I use KPrinter (which is set to use CUPS and has the Brother PPD
> installed), the KJobViewer will show the printing job almost instantly
> after Firefox has completed its printing task. KJobViewer will show the
> job as "Processing" while the printer's amber light is flashing slowly.
>
> I did some tests of my own to try to figure out what is going on. I
> tried using Firefox to print to a PostScript file rather than straight
> to the printer, and then using the KDE PS viewer to print the file.
> This makes no difference in print speed. Creating a PDF and printing
> that out prints out perhaps a bit faster, but with considerable
> sacrifice in print quality.
>
> I also tried printing from my Windows laptop via the Linux machine (I
> set up printer sharing through Samba.) I configured Samba to have my
> Linux machine provide an anonymous print server, and I then installed
> the HL-5150D PostScript driver on the Windows machine.
> Then--boom!--printing the same webpage from Windows was very
> fast--pages start coming out almost instantly--while the Linux machine
> is very slow. (I made sure that all the settings in the Windows and
> Linux drivers--e.g. DPI--were identical.)
>
> I tried printing in Konqueror, which is no faster.
>
> My most fruitful test was to try something I had learned earlier in
> Windows with an inkjet: I copied an entire webpage from Firefox by
> pressing "Control - A", and then I pasted this into OpenOffice.org
> Writer. I printed this page, which contained all the same graphics.
> Bam!--this printed out very quickly, just as quickly as Windows. The
> fonts were a bit different from the Firefox printout, but sill of
> top-notch quality; the graphics were of the same top-notch quality.
>
> I noticed that, when printing directly from Firefox, the job size shown
> in KJobsViewer is in the neighborhood of 300k for a newspaper article
> of four pages or so that contains a few simple chart graphics (like the
> Wall Street Journal.) This is well below the 16MB of memory that is
> standard in the Brother HL-5150D.
>
> I have also printed a PDF from Linux (the SMB Howto in PDF format.)
> This printed extremely rapidly; just as fast as Windows printing.
>
> So what I am wondering is: why is printing webpages in Firefox so much
> slower in Linux than it is in Windows? Obviously the cut-and-paste
> workaround I detailed above works okay, but I am curious as to why
> printing straight from Firefox (and from Konqueror, for that matter) is
> so slow, especially when essentially the same data in OpenOffice.org
> prints out very quickly.

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