I've recently tried setting up Cups under eCS 2.1. Both after an
initial installation and after installing Paul's recent updates to
cups, gutenprint and gcc473.dll my attempts to use Cups have failed.

The printer is an (inherited) HP DeskJet D2660. So my first question
is:

Do I have a chance of getting this printer to work with Cups and eCS?
If not, it is possible to get an HP DeskJet 3650 (another inherited
printer) to work? (I'd much prefer not to have to buy a new printer if
possible.)

If it's possible for the HP DeskJet D2660 to work, then the following
is what I've done and what I am currently experiencing:

I think I followed all the instructions, as far as I understood them,
for installing Cups et al and for setting up the printer.

I can see the printer at localhost:631 in my browser. But when I try
to print a test page, the printer acts like it is printing (it feeds a
sheet a paper through line by line and I can hear the print head
moving back and forth like it is actually printing) but ...
1) When the first page is "finished" a completely blank page is
ejected. (I know there is ink in the cartridge and that the printer
works because I printed to this printer earlier today.)
2) The test "page" print job appears to be hung trying to print page
2. (An exact quote:
"processing since
Wed Apr 16 20:35:17 EDT 2014
"Processing page 2..."
(I'm writing this at 21:02 so it has been trying page 2 for 25+
minutes at this point.)
3) My CPU monitor has been showing 99% busy since I started trying to
print the test page. I had to use TOP to kill Firefox. But even that
has not stopped the 99%. Apparently it is the WPS that is busy. I've
tried restarting it but it is taking forever to restart.
4) I get even less, i.e. no response of any kind from the printer and
nothing in the print queue, when I try to print from an application.

If it's possible for this printer to work, what additional
information, if any, do I need to gather and provide so that the
problem and solution can be identified?

Any help will be greatly appreciated! (I hate having to boot to my old
Windows PC to do my printing!?)

P.S. Which newsgroups(s) or list(s) are most appropriate for questions
about Cups? (I've tried the ecups devel group on gmane but I cannot
seem to be able to post to that group with either Pronews or gmane's
web interface!?)

--

John Small

Hi John

John Small wrote:
> I've recently tried setting up Cups under eCS 2.1. Both after an
> initial installation and after installing Paul's recent updates to
> cups, gutenprint and gcc473.dll my attempts to use Cups have failed.
>
> The printer is an (inherited) HP DeskJet D2660. So my first question
> is:
>
> Do I have a chance of getting this printer to work with Cups and eCS?

Probably if it does not use a closed source "plugin" that some printers
need.

You do not mention whether hplip is installed - I must admit that I do
not know if the DJ2660 needs it.

> If not, it is possible to get an HP DeskJet 3650 (another inherited
> printer) to work? (I'd much prefer not to have to buy a new printer if
> possible.)
>
> If it's possible for the HP DeskJet D2660 to work, then the following
> is what I've done and what I am currently experiencing:
>
> I think I followed all the instructions, as far as I understood them,
> for installing Cups et al and for setting up the printer.
>
> I can see the printer at localhost:631 in my browser. But when I try
> to print a test page, the printer acts like it is printing (it feeds a
> sheet a paper through line by line and I can hear the print head
> moving back and forth like it is actually printing) but ...
> 1) When the first page is "finished" a completely blank page is
> ejected. (I know there is ink in the cartridge and that the printer
> works because I printed to this printer earlier today.)

If you are not out of ink then there is either a cups misconfiguration
or possibly missing support file(s).

> 2) The test "page" print job appears to be hung trying to print page
> 2. (An exact quote:
> "processing since
> Wed Apr 16 20:35:17 EDT 2014
> "Processing page 2..."
> (I'm writing this at 21:02 so it has been trying page 2 for 25+
> minutes at this point.)

Have you set the cups printer to use the correct size paper? I ask
because it is a test page, ie 1 page, so trying to print page 2 sounds
like the paper size may be wrong.

> 3) My CPU monitor has been showing 99% busy since I started trying to
> print the test page. I had to use TOP to kill Firefox. But even that
> has not stopped the 99%. Apparently it is the WPS that is busy. I've
> tried restarting it but it is taking forever to restart.

Have you tried Canceling the print job? If you do not Cancel the job it
gets reloaded every time the cups daemon starts.

> 4) I get even less, i.e. no response of any kind from the printer and
> nothing in the print queue, when I try to print from an application.
>

If the cups test page is not printing then nothing else will. I think
you want to concentrate on getting a successful test page print before
trying to create the OS/2 printer for apps to use.

> If it's possible for this printer to work, what additional
> information, if any, do I need to gather and provide so that the
> problem and solution can be identified?
>

Good question; probably best answered by Paul (cups porter) but I
suspect you need to set the log to Debug.

> Any help will be greatly appreciated! (I hate having to boot to my old
> Windows PC to do my printing!?)
>
> P.S. Which newsgroups(s) or list(s) are most appropriate for questions
> about Cups? (I've tried the ecups devel group on gmane but I cannot
> seem to be able to post to that group with either Pronews or gmane's
> web interface!?)
>
>

The gmane ng is probably the best place to post questions and get
responses - no problems posting using Seamonkey so I guess Thunderbird
will work.

You could also try posting on the os2world forums as Paul (cups porter)
posts there now and again in response to various questions about cups
and other ported *nix apps.

Hope the above is of some help

Regards

Pete

On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:47:48 UTC, Peter Brown
<losepeteSPAM-ME-NOT@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Hi John
>
> John Small wrote:
> > I've recently tried setting up Cups under eCS 2.1. Both after an
> > initial installation and after installing Paul's recent updates to
> > cups, gutenprint and gcc473.dll my attempts to use Cups have failed.
> >
> > The printer is an (inherited) HP DeskJet D2660. So my first question
> > is:
> >
> > Do I have a chance of getting this printer to work with Cups and eCS?
>
>
> Probably if it does not use a closed source "plugin" that some printers
> need.
>
> You do not mention whether hplip is installed - I must admit that I do
> not know if the DJ2660 needs it.

Yes, I did install hplip (at the same time I installed cups). I
assumed I had to since I do not believe the printer supports
postscript.

> > If not, it is possible to get an HP DeskJet 3650 (another inherited
> > printer) to work? (I'd much prefer not to have to buy a new printer if
> > possible.)
> >
> > If it's possible for the HP DeskJet D2660 to work, then the following
> > is what I've done and what I am currently experiencing:
> >
> > I think I followed all the instructions, as far as I understood them,
> > for installing Cups et al and for setting up the printer.
> >
> > I can see the printer at localhost:631 in my browser. But when I try
> > to print a test page, the printer acts like it is printing (it feeds a
> > sheet a paper through line by line and I can hear the print head
> > moving back and forth like it is actually printing) but ...
> > 1) When the first page is "finished" a completely blank page is
> > ejected. (I know there is ink in the cartridge and that the printer
> > works because I printed to this printer earlier today.)
>
>
> If you are not out of ink then there is either a cups misconfiguration
> or possibly missing support file(s).
>
>
> > 2) The test "page" print job appears to be hung trying to print page
> > 2. (An exact quote:
> > "processing since
> > Wed Apr 16 20:35:17 EDT 2014
> > "Processing page 2..."
> > (I'm writing this at 21:02 so it has been trying page 2 for 25+
> > minutes at this point.)
>
>
> Have you set the cups printer to use the correct size paper? I ask
> because it is a test page, ie 1 page, so trying to print page 2 sounds
> like the paper size may be wrong.

Using localhost:631/admin, under "set default options", the media size
seems to be correct: 8.5 x 11 in. The other settings on that page look
good, too.

Is there some other place where I should check?

> > If it's possible for this printer to work, what additional
> > information, if any, do I need to gather and provide so that the
> > problem and solution can be identified?
> >
>
>
> Good question; probably best answered by Paul (cups porter) but I
> suspect you need to set the log to Debug.
>
>
> > Any help will be greatly appreciated! (I hate having to boot to my old
> > Windows PC to do my printing!?)
> >
> > P.S. Which newsgroups(s) or list(s) are most appropriate for questions
> > about Cups? (I've tried the ecups devel group on gmane but I cannot
> > seem to be able to post to that group with either Pronews or gmane's
> > web interface!?)
>
> The gmane ng is probably the best place to post questions and get
> responses - no problems posting using Seamonkey so I guess Thunderbird
> will work.

I'll try Seamonkey, then Thunderbird.

> You could also try posting on the os2world forums as Paul (cups porter)
> posts there now and again in response to various questions about cups
> and other ported *nix apps.
> Hope the above is of some help

It has helped. Thanks!

--

John Small

Hi John

John Small wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:47:48 UTC, Peter Brown
> <losepeteSPAM-ME-NOT@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi John
>>
>> John Small wrote:
>>> I've recently tried setting up Cups under eCS 2.1. Both after an
>>> initial installation and after installing Paul's recent updates to
>>> cups, gutenprint and gcc473.dll my attempts to use Cups have failed.
>>>
>>> The printer is an (inherited) HP DeskJet D2660. So my first question
>>> is:
>>>
>>> Do I have a chance of getting this printer to work with Cups and eCS?
>>
>>
>> Probably if it does not use a closed source "plugin" that some printers
>> need.
>>
>> You do not mention whether hplip is installed - I must admit that I do
>> not know if the DJ2660 needs it.
>
> Yes, I did install hplip (at the same time I installed cups). I
> assumed I had to since I do not believe the printer supports
> postscript.
>
>
>>> If not, it is possible to get an HP DeskJet 3650 (another inherited
>>> printer) to work? (I'd much prefer not to have to buy a new printer if
>>> possible.)
>>>
>>> If it's possible for the HP DeskJet D2660 to work, then the following
>>> is what I've done and what I am currently experiencing:
>>>
>>> I think I followed all the instructions, as far as I understood them,
>>> for installing Cups et al and for setting up the printer.
>>>
>>> I can see the printer at localhost:631 in my browser. But when I try
>>> to print a test page, the printer acts like it is printing (it feeds a
>>> sheet a paper through line by line and I can hear the print head
>>> moving back and forth like it is actually printing) but ...
>>> 1) When the first page is "finished" a completely blank page is
>>> ejected. (I know there is ink in the cartridge and that the printer
>>> works because I printed to this printer earlier today.)
>>
>>
>> If you are not out of ink then there is either a cups misconfiguration
>> or possibly missing support file(s).
>>
>>
>>> 2) The test "page" print job appears to be hung trying to print page
>>> 2. (An exact quote:
>>> "processing since
>>> Wed Apr 16 20:35:17 EDT 2014
>>> "Processing page 2..."
>>> (I'm writing this at 21:02 so it has been trying page 2 for 25+
>>> minutes at this point.)
>>
>>
>> Have you set the cups printer to use the correct size paper? I ask
>> because it is a test page, ie 1 page, so trying to print page 2 sounds
>> like the paper size may be wrong.
>
> Using localhost:631/admin, under "set default options", the media size
> seems to be correct: 8.5 x 11 in. The other settings on that page look
> good, too.
>
> Is there some other place where I should check?
>
>
>>> If it's possible for this printer to work, what additional
>>> information, if any, do I need to gather and provide so that the
>>> problem and solution can be identified?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Good question; probably best answered by Paul (cups porter) but I
>> suspect you need to set the log to Debug.
>>
>>
>>> Any help will be greatly appreciated! (I hate having to boot to my old
>>> Windows PC to do my printing!?)
>>>
>>> P.S. Which newsgroups(s) or list(s) are most appropriate for questions
>>> about Cups? (I've tried the ecups devel group on gmane but I cannot
>>> seem to be able to post to that group with either Pronews or gmane's
>>> web interface!?)
>>
>> The gmane ng is probably the best place to post questions and get
>> responses - no problems posting using Seamonkey so I guess Thunderbird
>> will work.
>
> I'll try Seamonkey, then Thunderbird.
>
>> You could also try posting on the os2world forums as Paul (cups porter)
>> posts there now and again in response to various questions about cups
>> and other ported *nix apps.
>
>> Hope the above is of some help
>
> It has helped. Thanks!
>
>

There is a recent test build of hplip available that may help
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76425158/hplip-3.14.3-os2-20140427.zip

Regards

Pete