Installing a printer for AXP

Support knowledgebase (jsmeix_print-axp)
Applies to

SuSE Linux AXP: Versions since 6.4

Request:

You want to install your printer for SuSE Linux AXP.

Procedure:

If "AXP" is not mentioned explicitly in the following articles a Intel-based PC is assumed. Hardware specific informations (e.g. special BIOS settings etc.) are normally related to Intel-based PCs and therefore such informations may be not relevant for AXP or instructions must be applied by analogy.

Prerequisites:

Please find the general prerequisites in the following article: Installing a printer

Regarding the parallel port at AXP:

Please test, if your printer is accessible using the following command (as user root):

echo -en "Hello\f" >/dev/lp0
Provided the printer is connected to the first parallel port /dev/lp0 you should get one sheet with the word Hello printed on it.
As long as the printer doesn´t react, it makes normally no sense to make further configurations.
It is a prerequisite that the printer is able to print ASCII-text (in this case the word Hello followed by the ASCII-character \f which initiates a form feed). Printers that are not able to print ASCII-text, are mostly so called GDI-printers, but there are printers which cannot print ASCII-text but are usable under Linux nevertheless.

If the printer is able to print ASCII-text but doesn't print the word Hello probably the IO-port of the parallel interface is not set correctly.

Either you set the IO-port of the parallel interface to 378 (hexadecimal) in the BIOS
or you try the other standard IO-ports 3bc and 278 as follows:

Normally you find the following lines in the file /etc/modules.conf

  alias parport_lowlevel    parport_pc
  options parport_pc io=0x378 irq=none,none
Set either io=0x3bc or io=0x278 for the IO-adress of the parallel interface (see the article Printer Problems: Special Causes).
Do a reboot and test whether echo -en "Hello\f" >/dev/lp0 works.

Configuration using SETUP (respectively lprsetup):

See the article Installing a printer
See also:
o Installing a Printer

Keywords: AXP, PRINTER, PRINTING, INSTALLATION

Categories: DEC Alpha

SDB-jsmeix_print-axp, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 22. Aug 2000
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 22. Aug 2000 by jsmeix (sdb_gen 1.40.0)