6 hours of trying to configure my printer - solved

[Dave]

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 00:01:22 -0500, you wrote:

>I got my printing working by installing "apsfilter" and by following 
>some of the instructions in the (printed) "The FreeBSD Handbook 2ed".  I 
>am using FreeBSD 5.3, an HP940c Deskjet, parallel port connection, and 
>the "lpr" method of printing (rather than the "CUPS" method).

I'll add my thanks for that "mini How-to" also.

I've just spent some head scratching time getting my Epson Stylus Photo
R200 working with FreeBSD.

I also went the lpr route and set up a basic /etc/printcap file for it and
pointed gimp-print at it as I only really needed, initially, to print from
the Gimp.

The head scratching was caused by assuming that the printer device was
/dev/ulpt0.  It's not.  It's /dev/unlpt0.  The 'n' is for no-reset.  Using
/dev/ulpt0 just prints garbled text instead of the graphics I was sending.

For text, I've got an HPLJ5M with postscript so that was a doddle, even
down to using the network interface to print :-0

Thanks to Ted for the pointers to using
apsfilter/ghostscript/ijs/gimp-print too.  I'll have a look at that so I
can use the Epson for other stuff if I find the need.

Dave

-- 
Dave

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