[9fans] printing from Plan 9

[9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Richard Miller]

Before replacing my expiring inkjet printer I thought I'd ask
the list: does anyone still use lp(1) nowadays, and are there
printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Covert Username]

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Actually, I do. If you can find a printer with PostScript compatibility and
configure it correctly in /sys/lib/lp/devices, it works great.

My printer is a laser printer and not an inkjet, however. Specific model is
a Brother MFC8710DW. Unfortunately it seems to be discontinued now. It has
PostScript compatibility and it has an embedded BSD lpd server in it, which
works fine with lp(1).

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 4:05 AM Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:

> Before replacing my expiring inkjet printer I thought I'd ask
> the list: does anyone still use lp(1) nowadays, and are there
> printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Graham Gallagher]

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>
>
> are there printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?
>
> A true Postscript printer (which will work) requires the OEM paying
royalties to Adobe so won't be the cheapest solution. You may be better off
sacrificing one of your old RPI boards to Linux and using that as your
common printer interface to the large set of supported printer devices.

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Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Richard Miller]

> You may be better off
> sacrificing one of your old RPI boards to Linux and using that as your
> common printer interface to the large set of supported printer devices

Sounds practical.  Years ago I used a Mac for a CUPS server, until a
MacOS opgrade suddenly made it stop working with lp(1), and I was too
lazy to debug it.  Maybe time to try again with raspbian.

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Charles Forsyth]

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the downside is that you'd need to deal with CUPS!

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 12:42 PM Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:

> > You may be better off
> > sacrificing one of your old RPI boards to Linux and using that as your
> > common printer interface to the large set of supported printer devices
>
> Sounds practical.  Years ago I used a Mac for a CUPS server, until a
> MacOS opgrade suddenly made it stop working with lp(1), and I was too
> lazy to debug it.  Maybe time to try again with raspbian.
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[arnold]

Modern HP printers are very easy to handle. They sit on the
network and Linux can find them automatically.  HP provides
excellent LInux support for their printers.

CUPS isn't fun but it's not rocket science; once you get it going
it's generally set and forget.

My 2 cents,

Arnold

Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:

> the downside is that you'd need to deal with CUPS!
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 12:42 PM Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>
> > > You may be better off
> > > sacrificing one of your old RPI boards to Linux and using that as your
> > > common printer interface to the large set of supported printer devices
> >
> > Sounds practical.  Years ago I used a Mac for a CUPS server, until a
> > MacOS opgrade suddenly made it stop working with lp(1), and I was too
> > lazy to debug it.  Maybe time to try again with raspbian.
> >
> >
> >

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

Richard Miller writes:

> Before replacing my expiring inkjet printer I thought I'd ask
> the list: does anyone still use lp(1) nowadays, and are there
> printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?

As others have mentioned, life is far too short for CUPS.

For Plan9 printing I have always just used a laser printer that
natively supports Postscript.  You pay a bit more for Postscript,
but that pays for itself immediately in not having to dick around
with CUPS, gs, or gawd knows what else to get the hardware talking
to whatever system you've plugged it into.

I currently have an HP Laserjet M402dn.  It speaks Postscript 3,
prints up to 40 PPM, supports duplex printing, and talks lpd or
"virtual serial port" on port 9100.  CAD$350 from Staples.

I've never had any trouble making these consumer HP Postscript
printers interface with lp(1).  I configure them as an lpd printer,
and then point all the other hosts on the network at the Plan9 CPU
server as their default 'printer'.  This lets me use the lp(1)
content conversion filters on all the other hosts -- I find lp's
behaviour to be far superior to anything that MacOS and the others
provide.

If you really need an inkjet (e.g. for colour), I would still
recommend finding something that natively supports Postscript.
Failing that, you're likely going to have to connect the inkjet to
something like a Mac or a Linux host.  But as long as you can
configure the print host to listen on the lpd port and handle
incoming Postscript jobs correctly, you should just be able to
configure it as a networked Postscript printer.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Lucio De Re]

On 9/15/19, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
>
> If you really need an inkjet (e.g. for colour), I would still
> recommend finding something that natively supports Postscript.

If I may add my own rage to this: am I the only person who objects to
a growing collection of empty inkjet (and laserjet) cartridges for
which I have paid top "dollar" and which cannot be re-purposed to any
practical use?

It strikes me that the European Commission (is that their real name?)
could invest their efforts in prosecuting the cartridge manufacturers
and force them to refund buyers for the money they were compelled to
fork out for the container to a couple of milligrams of ink?

I have no doubt that the price of such container is orders of
magnitude greater than that of the ink.

Lucio.

PS: I live in South Africa, so me being a EU citizen is not much help
in pursuing such an issue with the EC. But if the idea gets a little
traction where it can make a difference, I would gladly join in.

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Ethan Gardener]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, at 10:04 AM, Richard Miller wrote:
> Before replacing my expiring inkjet printer I thought I'd ask
> the list: does anyone still use lp(1) nowadays, and are there
> printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?

I got an Epson because they have an email print service. It supports pdf, but not ps. Is that any good? Maybe you could filter through ps2pdf(1).

I just realised I never tried it before, so I sent it an email with empty subject, empty body, attached il.pdf; it printed out fine apart from a 1-2 minute delay before it began. Results are identical to printing from a PDF reader on Windows with default settings, apart from not being vertically centered on the page. I imagine it would be better if ps2pdf was given the correct paper size; il.pdf is set for taller paper than I have.

The setup to get the email address for the printer was fairly brief, involving a web page if I remember right. Nothing like setting up anything on Linux. You get an email address unique to your printer.

https://www.epsonconnect.com/

https://www.epsonconnect.com/guide/en/html/uses_1.htm

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[hiro]

sounds like it might be less frustrating to put it on a usb drive and
walk to a print shop.
otoh my good old kyocera works fine and understands any protocol i throw at it.

Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[umbraticus]

I use this with lp(1):

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw

I just looked for something that could speak postscript.

umbraticus