[Techtalk] Printer trouble - minor breakthrough

[Caitlyn Martin]

Hi, Conni,

It's been a while.  I hope life is treating you well.

> I uninstalled all the print stuff again, then reinstalled it.  After
> racking my brain a while and reading the documentation, I went to GIMP
> and successfully set up the printer there.  I even printed a small
> image.  So gimp-print can make this stupid printer work.
> 
> Still one problem, though: printconf-gui still doesn't list my
> printer, and there aren't any printers that it thinks is equivalent.

Red Hat uses an older version of Ghostscript because of
licensing issues.  I expect you'll find that the newest version if
downloaded, may support it.  The problem is that rhs-printfilter, which
is what printconf-gui draws its printer list from, still won't know
about it.  The net result is that basically, to make printing work with
your printer, you need to rip out everything Red Hat included with 7.2
and start from scratch.  I had to do that for Keith's Epson Stylus Color
300.  

Red Hat 8.0 should solve this problem.  They've followed everyone else
and gone to cups, at least in the first release candidate and on
rawhide.

> I'd like to be able to print from, say abiword with this printer, or
> even use the better drivers from gimp-print for my old Canon (which
> works sufficiently for printing things like papers, but the edges are
> kind of fuzzy.)

For that you'll probably have to go with cups.  Forget printconf-gui: 
it won't work for you.  Plan on using kups to administer the printers. 
You need to rip out every last printing related Red Hat thing and start
over.  It's not easy, it took me quite a few hours to get it right, and
no, I didn't write it all down so I can't repeat all the steps in a nice
how-to.  I wish I could.  I know it can be done, though, because Keith's
RH 7.2 box does have cups on it and does work with his printer.

All the best,
Caity