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FX P115 w laser printer not working SOLVED

Posted: Tue 23 Feb 2016, 15:18
by boof
I've upgraded CUPS & gutenprint to latest versions, I know that the Brother hl-1040 driver will run my FX printer. I'm using the ppd file for the HL-1040-which is recommended. CUPS is reporting that it can't open the print file, (which exists in /var/spool/cups) The file is called d0000-0019
The printer is connected by usb cable, and they do talk, but there's no paper feed or there's no printout. Is there another way of sending the file to the printer, with, say a script. I can't work out how to setup the wireless connection on the printer, perhaps I need to setup some file sharing? My WLAN is already used for a tethered access point..The HL-1040 driver is old, I'm unsure if that's a problem.

Posted: Tue 23 Feb 2016, 23:49
by Atle
Sometimes I come a cross certain issues like for many years trying to get of the Windows addiction, I needed a secret little Windows XP just to resolve thing that was problematic to get done.

I do not know how much you use your printer...

Is it like everyday or just very rare? If rare, why not have a secondary OS just for that? I admit I still need Linux Mint for some more sophisticated work with merging and splitting large PDF documents. There might be a hidden solution for that somewhere inside some thread, but i never found it.

so i settle with having a mint installed as they got some solution for that and how often do I need to use that? 4 times a year?

So what I am saying is that you might just fix this very fast by making a bootable USB, install whatever to a partition or somehow resolve the problem outside Puppy.

Just my five cents as I also come across stuff where i feel i am the only one on the planet that wants to do this and that and then i can not request special written whatever if its not OOTB.

But if i see something that can benefit ME and OTHERS, hell I am on my knees like nobodys business.

Just some thoughts on your problem vs soultion

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 00:19
by boof
I do have win7, but it's a pita to have to restart or use VMware just to print something. especially when it seems importatnt I guess I could write a script to run vmware and win7 automatically when a print file exists, and transfer the print file to my win7 print file location and print it?

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 00:53
by Atle
It sounds like you do quite some printing then.

As for me i never liked CUPS. I always pray for a alternative and there are some out there, but are they useful?

There is Printerd

https://github.com/hughsie/printerd

And then there is this gang, without me looking into their doings.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collabor ... enprinting

Since you say your printer is old, you might need some old stuff to get it right? At least some threads and then i can just say good luck...

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 08:39
by boof
printerd-master not configuring--see attached. I'll PM the config file to anyone curious.

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 13:15
by Atle
I am curious... did it somehow help out? or does it look promising?

I hope you get this sorted out. This is like a very green project and if more did like you, we would not need to buy our planet down to its knees.

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 15:13
by boof
I've emailed the developer to see what he thinks. the error is a "syntax error on line 12241 of configure, near 0.6.2" Looks like an undeclared subroutine? I can't find the call for it.

Try the FujiXerox driver?

Posted: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 23:55
by davids45
G'day boof,

I have a networked FujiXerox colour laser (DOCUPRINT C1110) which I've used with all Pups via the driver from FujiXerox for several years - since I bought the printer, in fact.
I'm assuming your problem is with TahrPup-6.0.5 (not "6.5.0")?

Anyway, why not try a fujixerox driver?

Here's an oldish pet - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 583#683241
which I hope will be OK for you. It's been very good for me.

A summary of my 2011 printer tests with my Docuprint and rcrsn51's pet are here for a bit of historical background. You could even browse the rest of this very helpful thread if you have time.

Good luck,
David S.

Posted: Thu 25 Feb 2016, 01:06
by boof
sorry, 6.3.0

no FX drivers for P115 w-haven't tried the few existing ones but now will. It's an odd driver "page description language" type. Typical cheap printer-peculiar. It's a current model, and fuji just haven't produced a linux driver, even though it's mentioned in the documentation, which may be generic? I only bought it because it was affordable, would do what I want, and the prev HP inkjet kept locking out refills. I never considered that it wouldn't have a driver.

Fujixerox driver pet works in slacko-6.3.0

Posted: Fri 26 Feb 2016, 02:55
by davids45
G'day boof,

I just tried my networked FujiXerox colour laser with slacko-6.3.0, using the files in the old fujixerox pet from rcrsn51.
Printing was successful.

For reference, here's a screenshot showing the CUPS Administration page for my FX printer with some details.
Also in the other window (Rox) is the location of the ppd file the printer uses - /usr/share/cups/model/FujiXerox/en/ is where I tell Cups to Browse to find it. The ppd file dates from 2010 :) .

So by all means, give the old .pet a go.

David S.

solved

Posted: Fri 26 Feb 2016, 15:49
by boof
I have reloaded 6.0.2 and am using the ppd file for the Brother HL-1050. It woks. Thanks for all the help. Will leave 6/3.0 until more bugs are out.

Posted: Fri 26 Feb 2016, 17:04
by rcrsn51
@boof: Could you please clarify some things.

1. What is the full correct name of your printer? You have described it as a CP1115w or as a P115. You have never used its full name, which I suspect is DocuPrint.

2. What Brother driver are you using - the builtin Gutenprint driver? The vendor driver from Brother? A PPD file from somewhere else? You have variously mentioned the HL-1030, HL-1040 and HL-1050.

3. How did you discover that legacy Brother drivers work with your printer?

This will be useful information for other Fuji-Xerox users.

Solved

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 03:43
by boof
using the later driver for the HL-1050 works. The reason being that the 1040 driver is limited to 300x300dpi, which isn't enough. The 1050 driver does both 600x600dpi and 1200x600dpi, both of which work. Thx all. BTW, I used the Brother ppd file-it seemed bette. CUPS approved both ppd files, but not the gutenprint ones, which prob work..

Yes it is a Fuji-Xerox Docuprint P115 w, The C is an official inclusion I've seen somewhere.

I noticed in the documentations a reference to Brother (shared device drivers????), and thought it worth a try, I selected an early laser printer in the hope it would be monochrome and went from there. It took a while to twig the low resolution was a problem, but we got there.

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 07:24
by rcrsn51
Where did you get the Brother PPD file? As a general rule, a PPD file by itself is not enough to get a printer working.

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 14:23
by boof
I downloaded it from http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Bro ... er-HL-1050 and used it with CUPS. Works fine.

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 15:08
by rcrsn51
Thanks. Your HL-1050 PPD file uses a driver called hl1250 that is built-in to Ghostscript. That's why you don't need to install a full driver package.

I'm guessing that your P115w uses the same driver technology as the early Brothers, and both are supported by the hl1250 driver.

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 15:18
by jamesbond
This is interesting. I've been avoiding Fuji Xerox printers exactly because many of the recent ones don't have any Linux drivers. Many submissions on openprinting.org decribe FX printers as "bricks" (ie, useless because there are no drivers for them).

I recently got one, FX P255 dw. I know this one will work because it supports Postscript (I did my research before getting it). But it's a bit older, finding toner for it is not easy, and furthermore the toner is on the expensive side compared to the newer models. I would have gotten this P115w if I knew it would work with cups. I would have never suspected that Brother drivers will work for them.

So thanks for the info.

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 15:29
by rcrsn51
I am still curious as to how boof figured this out, because I can't find any documentation that mentions it.

I wonder how long it will take before googling "docuprint P115w linux" will send users here? :wink:

Posted: Sun 06 Mar 2016, 16:03
by jamesbond
I can't tell. But I googled for "fuji xerox p115w brother hl-1050 driver" and it brought me to http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2411146. This thread shows up as the second link.

Of course, to be able to google that, this requires one to know the fact first. I guess the best thing we can do (either you, me, or boof) is to submit the fact to openprinting.org so that others know about that as well.