I need to buy a new laser printer; I'd prefer HP, because all my current printers are HP, but I'm running into a problem. it appears that the only way to get network connectivity (ie, to have the printer sit directly on the network) is to buy a jetdirect card. however, one of the other groups here recently bought a 4000N with the jetdirect card, and, as far as we can tell, there's no way to avoid having to have separate print queues for ASCII text and postscript.
in The Old Days (TM), I could buy a plain old ethernet interface card from HP, set up jetadmin on my printer server, and the text/PS switching was taken care of automatically. I'd like to continue with that model, but it's not clear that that's possible.
what I'd like is
a) a vanilla ethernet card that goes inside a HP PS printer, so I can stick with my tried and true method of printing.
b) a way to get around the two-queue problem so that any machine on my network can print text or PS without the user having to pick the right printer queue.
c) some way to get around using the print server feature of the jetdirect card.
or, of course, option 'd', if there's something really clever that I haven't thought of.
this is for a network of Suns running Solaris 2.5 (and SGIs running IRIX 6.2).
-- Ned Danieley (n...@eel-mail.mc.duke.edu) Experimental Electrophysiology Laboratory Box 90295, Duke University Durham, NC 27708 (919) 660-5111
Ned Danieley wrote: > ... > of the other groups here recently bought a 4000N with the jetdirect > card, and, as far as we can tell, there's no way to avoid having to > have separate print queues for ASCII text and postscript.
Shouldn't be a problem as long as you use the "AppSocket" (ala JetDirect) protocol and not LPD/LPR. HP's JetAdmin software does this, as does LPRng, as does our ESP Print and CUPS...
I see below you mention IRIX, and unfortunately the JetAdmin software isn't available for IRIX... SGI's "Impressario" product supports the JetDirect, tho the drivers for the 4000 will only send PS to the printer (text will be converted to PS...) Our ESP Print software will send text straight-through...
> ... > from HP, set up jetadmin on my printer server, and the text/PS > switching was taken care of automatically. I'd like to continue with > that model, but it's not clear that that's possible.
It seems to work with our 4000 and 5000, from any of our Solaris, IRIX, or HP-UX machines...
-- ________________________________________________________________________ Mike Sweet Software for HP, SGI, Easy Software Products (301) 373-9603 and Sun Workstations 44145 Airport View Drive m...@easysw.com http://www.easysw.com Hollywood, Maryland 20636
n...@eel-mail.mc.duke.edu (Ned Danieley) writes: >I need to buy a new laser printer; I'd prefer HP, because all my >current printers are HP, but I'm running into a problem. it appears >that the only way to get network connectivity (ie, to have the printer >sit directly on the network) is to buy a jetdirect card. however, one >of the other groups here recently bought a 4000N with the jetdirect >card, and, as far as we can tell, there's no way to avoid having to >have separate print queues for ASCII text and postscript.
You can buy a jetdirect box instead, and plug the printer parallel cable into that. I suppose you would have the same problem.
On this solaris system, we have our JetDirect HP printers configured as PS printers, and we allow solaris to use its filters to convert ascii text to postscript. This seems to work adequately.
> I need to buy a new laser printer; I'd prefer HP, because all my > current printers are HP, but I'm running into a problem. it appears > that the only way to get network connectivity (ie, to have the printer > sit directly on the network) is to buy a jetdirect card. however, one > of the other groups here recently bought a 4000N with the jetdirect > card, and, as far as we can tell, there's no way to avoid having to > have separate print queues for ASCII text and postscript.
> in The Old Days (TM), I could buy a plain old ethernet interface card > from HP, set up jetadmin on my printer server, and the text/PS > switching was taken care of automatically. I'd like to continue with > that model, but it's not clear that that's possible.
> what I'd like is
> a) a vanilla ethernet card that goes inside a HP PS printer, so I > can stick with my tried and true method of printing.
> b) a way to get around the two-queue problem so that any machine on > my network can print text or PS without the user having to pick the > right printer queue.
> c) some way to get around using the print server feature of the jetdirect > card.
I have not experienced this problem and we have all kinds of HP network printers here with JetDirect cards? Why do you believe that it can't do auto-switching? Maybe this is something in newer firmware on larger printers that we don't have. On the other hand, maybe it's just the way your print software is configured. Are you using Sun's lp? I just use an input filter that sends the job directly to port 9100 on the HP.
>>>>> "Ned" == Ned Danieley <n...@eel-mail.mc.duke.edu> writes:
Ned> I need to buy a new laser printer; I'd prefer HP, because all my Ned> current printers are HP, but I'm running into a problem. it Ned> appears that the only way to get network connectivity (ie, to have Ned> the printer sit directly on the network) is to buy a jetdirect Ned> card. however, one of the other groups here recently bought a Ned> 4000N with the jetdirect card, and, as far as we can tell, there's Ned> no way to avoid having to have separate print queues for ASCII Ned> text and postscript.
We use HP printers almost exclusively, with JetDirects on all of them. We use LPRng and ifhp. Ifhp does all of the autosensing, while LPRng talks directly to a JetDirect, so there's no need for JetAdmin, and no need for multiple queues.
-- Dave Carrigan (Dave.Carri...@iplenergy.com) Sr. Technical Analyst, Technology Services Interprovincial Pipe Line Inc.
> >your print software is configured. Are you using Sun's lp? I just > >use an input filter that sends the job directly to port 9100 on the HP.
> You do, eh? Via printers.conf? I'd like to know the syntax, as I can't > find it documented for the life of me.
Sorry. I don't use that either. Sun has a very easy and nice method to directly send jobs to network printers with 2.6, but it assumes that your job is preformatted and ships it as is. I'm not sure how to do what you want. I was referring to the fact that I use the BSD/lpd port and use an input filter to NL->CR/LF jobs for HP printers as needed. Sorry to be so nebulous.
