Madhurya Kakati writes:

...

Canon has terrible linux support. I have a canon LBP2900B laser printer and haven't been able to print using there official CAPT driver. Its something related to pstocapt files. CUPS is unable to communicate properly with the CAPT daemon which sends commands to the printer.

That would make sense It does work under Debian 32 so I could always plug in my netbook if I needed something to print. As it stands I am using a print server which hooks to a windows gaming machine. I might print like once or twice a month that might be maybe two pages so I am in fear of having the ink dry out more than not working as advertised. I used to like Epson but the price was right on the Canon and wanting a cheap 30-40 dollar printer to work in all environments is a little wishful. Anyway thanks for the information I will keep my eye on the list, as well as openprinting and see if anything changes. R7h0re4

On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Martti Kühne wrote:

On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 4:11 AM, R7h0re4 wrote: <snip>

...

That would make sense It does work under Debian 32 so I could always plug in my netbook if I needed something to print.  As it stands I am using a print server which hooks to a windows gaming machine.  I might print like once or twice a month that might be maybe two pages so I am in fear of having the ink dry out more than not working as advertised. <snip>

umm, just to give my two cents, but what if you just added the ppd file from the debian machine to your archlinux box? cups config isn't that much of a hurdle for people who want to look deeper into stuff like that.

Even sharing printers wouuld be possible, so that you could just hook up the debian box as your intermediate printing instance, because cups has proven pretty reliable on this kinda stuff. (I share my oki printer to a variety of OSes in my home config)

mar77i

Trust me, I used a crazy number of ppd files but they still don't work. AFAIK the the document to be printed is converted to postscript (ps) files and sent to the printer. Canon printer can't print directly from ps files so they need to convert to a suitable format. I think thats what the pstocapt file does. And thats the only thing messing up. CUPS sends everything right but the ps files don't get converted. I tried printing from a Linux Mint live DVD too using official drivers but it just won't print. I should have bought a HP laser. :(

R7h0re4 said it works on Debian 32. As I understand it, it should be possible to clone the config on other distributions. If you can't clone it, ask the debian devs what they did there. Another hacky suggestion, although not very nice to resources, but may spare config-diving: run a virtual machine with an os which works with the canon printer, and use it as a print server. You can make snapshot with some virtual machines, which would speed up starting and stopping the server, which just could be automated in a script. mar77i

AFAK refilling the toner is fine for 2 or 3 times maybe. but refilling it a lot will cause loss of print quality. It depends also on the type of the toner and the quality of ink. sometimes even 6 or 7 refills might work, but that's a rare case! :D On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Madhurya Kakati wrote:

On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Martti Kühne wrote:

...

R7h0re4 said it works on Debian 32. As I understand it, it should be possible to clone the config on other distributions. If you can't clone it, ask the debian devs what they did there. Another hacky suggestion, although not very nice to resources, but may spare config-diving: run a virtual machine with an os which works with the canon printer, and use it as a print server. You can make snapshot with some virtual machines, which would speed up starting and stopping the server, which just could be automated in a script.

mar77i

Just wanted to ask something off-topic. What do you guys think about refilling laser printer toner? Is it good? The original toner cartridges are very expensive.