Red hat 9.0 and dot matrix printing

[nibble]

guys, is it possible to print using rh9.0 with dot matrix (lx 300)? help

[Roberto Polli]

look on printer driver configuration with cups.

Peace, R.

[Mark Grant]

Depends what you are using to print with. "cups", "cups with "gimp-print", "lp", "lpr". However, if there isn't a specific driver for your specific printer, you should try the "dumbest" driver you can find.

I do notice that "cups" does have a driver for Epson 9-pin printers which I believe this one is. You could try that.

[nibble]

hi mark,

yup it has.. but stil wont print... =(

[Mark Grant]

Do you get anything at all?

Is the printer enabled, do other printers work, is it a serial printer and if so has it been set up as a serial printer within cups? Try disabling the print queue and then printing to it, does it turn up in the queue, if serial, is the cable correct, if parallel, do you have parallel printer support, etc etc :)

[nibble]

well its serial and when i use generic drivers, it did print but not that desirable. prints like this:
LINE1
LINE2
LINe3
but when i use the epson lx 300 driver, it wont print at all

[Mark Grant]

nibble,

I'm guessing that you got the "staircase" effect when printing using the generic device and ITRC forum didn't format it as you hoped. If so, use the generic print driver and try this.

Run this command in the background before starting the print just to see if we can do a work around.

sleep 1000 < /dev/ttyS0 &
stty onlcr < /dev/ttyS0 &

The idea is to set the on newline do a carriage return on the serial port that the printer is attached to. However, you need to keep th device open which I thing, the sleep will do.

Just try it and see if it helps.

[nibble]

ive tried the commands that youve mentioned (running in background) but nothing happened..the printer continued printing like staircase

[Mark Grant]

Then I probably got it slightly wrong!

I think we need to see if we are on the right track though. I would suggest you go

stty onlcr < /dev/ttyS0 and then "cat testfile > /dev/ttyS0"

This assumes that your printer is attached ttyS0. This SHOULD work for that print. If this works then we can look to setting it permanently.

[nibble]

hi mark, hope this will help

my printer is connected via parallel port with device address /dev/lp0

should i change /dev/sttyS0 with /dev/lp0 instead?

[Mark Grant · Accepted solution]

No, the "stty" thing will not work with the parallel port.

This, therefore, is either the driver or the printer itself. The printer MAY have an option in it's configuration to turn on the carriage return after a newline. If you have that, you're problem is solved.

[nibble]

thanks mark,
again, ive tried the drivers installed with the generic. there was even the actual driver for that printer. probably, dot matrix printers from epson dont really work with RH 9.0.

ive already tried also the filters for its filtering. even CUPS (ive used also LPD). when i printed the directly to the device, staircase printing still.

$ cat test.file > /dev/lp0

i really appreciated your inputs with this. thanks,

[Mark Grant]

Epson dot matrix printers definately work with the OS. It's just that yours isn't :)

If you are prepared to install the system V "lpsched" printer spooler, there will be a specific "script" interface file for you printer where you can add the additional carriage return.

"cups" seems to have an interface directory too which is probably for the same thing. However, I can't be sure about that.

[Derek Whitten]

I couldn't get an Epson LQ570+ printer to work at all in linux -- linuxprinting.org shows that printer as working "perfectly". Tried several different drivers with it ( Epson 9 pin, Epson 24 pin, Epson LQ570+ driver ) all with no avail at all.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Epson-LQ-570plus