Line printer craziness

[Stacey Akerstrom]

Hello-
We've got a bunch of Okidata and Lexmark printers at our locations. (serial)
They all print a blank page prior to printing. No banner page, just a blank page.
I've stared at the print config file until I'm nearly blind, but I'm missing it.
Any ideas?
I'm attaching my /etc/lp/interface/lp00 file.

Thanks-
Stacey

[A. Clay Stephenson]

My best guess is that the stty settings do not match the serial settings of the printers.

[Stacey Akerstrom]

Clay, could you elaborate further, please?

Thanks-
Stacey

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

He propably means to check
stty raw 9600 opost onlcr parenb cs7 ixon istrip clocal tab3 <&1 2>/dev/null

against the serial setting of the printer.

greetings,

Michael

[Steve Steel]

Hi

#if [ -t 1 ] #uncomment to set baud.
#then #uncomment.
stty raw 9600 opost onlcr parenb cs7 ixon istrip clocal tab3 <&1 2>/dev/null
#else #uncomment.
# slp -r 2>/dev/null #uncomment.
#fi #uncomment.


You should uncomment the whole if loop at start and finish and not only the stty

Steve Steel

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Well, for example,
9600 cs7 parenb ixon implies 9600 baud, 7-bit word length, even parity, xon/xoff handshaking

If these settings do not match the printers'
serial settings then the host and printer don't communicate properly. You can choose various combinations but if you "zig" on one end, you must also "zig" on the other.

You also have to worry about proper cabling; just because the cable fits the connectors implies nothing about the pinouts of the cable ends. Serial devices have always been among the most difficult devices to configure properly especially if you lack equipment like breakout boxes.