Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 30428
driver problems for hp laserjets with new printconf
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:31:55 EDT
With printconf-0.2.1 and 0.2.2, the default printer driver selected for the HP Laserjet 6L is the lj5gray driver. Unfortunately, this prints raw PCL garbage :( Switching the driver to the ljet4 driver gets the printing working correctly.
This defect considered a show-stopper (MUST-FIX) for Florence GOLD release
This would require a fork of the database, and the other driver does work. I am hesitant to start forking the database, but I can bump this status upstream.
Are you just choosing the "default" printer driver by sort order? Going to linuxprinting.org, it shows the ljet4 driver first as opposed to the lj5gray driver and they are listed based in a "most likely to work" order AFAIK. This can have the effect of greatly reducing a printer's capabilities as well. For example, take a look at the Epson Stylus Color (printer which has caused me much pain in the past but which I luckily don't have to deal with any more :) -- the default driver being chosen by printconf is the st800 driver which is black and white only; the stcolor driver is specifically for the printer and properly supports color printing.
Actually, it seems that all the drivers are listed in sort order :( I've asked Grant to reorder them for future data base drops, but that's the most I can do.
I'm seeing this driver work on an HP LaserJet 6P with the latest system. Preston is of the opinon that a 6L is a 6P that doesn't know postscript. It is possible that something else was corrupting the stream. Please try the latest stuff from: http://people.redhat.com/crutcher/printing/ and share your results.
btw, Grant got back to me. He says the data base has no most likely to work information stored, and has only recently gained the ability to set a default entry.