Network printers

[looren]

Hey all
Just a bit curious..
Is it possible to set up network printers under OS4?


Cheers!

[eliyahu]

@looren

absolutely. i only use network printers with my AOS4 system. there are two options you can try: lpr.device and netprinter.device. you can use these devices in conjunction with whatever printer driver you're using. for example my HP officejet is a wifi printer, so i use the PCL 3 driver in combination with lpr.device, where i just point it to the IP address of my officejet. voila, wireless printing in action.

by the way, although the printing architecture dates back to the AOS2 days, it still works well enough. if you have a printer that supports postscript or HP PCL, you're good to go. you can also use turboprint if you like. let me know if you have any additional questions.

-- eliyahu


-- eliyahu

[looren]

Thanks for your reply eliyahu


Hm, please elaborate on 'well enough' if you do not mind? If you for example print a PDF file with text and images mixed, would it come out as it is on the screen?

What is turboprint?

I have a Brother MFC-7820N laser and from what I can see on Google it has support for postscript.
I also  have a Brother HL-3040CN color laser, but I found an article saying it does not have postscript. To bad... or is it something turboprint will take care of perhaps?

[chris]

absolutely. i only use network printers with my AOS4 system. there are two options you can try: lpr.device and netprinter.device.

Actually there are three options, once you've added in ipp.device.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

What is turboprint?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboPrint

[magnetic]

turbo print will only be good for pre year 2k printers. Believe it or not when I was with Genesi we approached IrseeSoft what it would take to make new drivers for Morphos based on Linux drivers they had. It was in the 10s of thousands iirc. Basically they were busy working with the Linux drivers and industrial customers or something.

Also, afaik Morphos team is working on porting the CUPS linux printing system. Which will be awesome.

There is another guy (terminillus) around that is working on new printer drivers for classics and NG.

[danbeaver]

There is a lot of info on using network printers in OS4.1 with Classic and NG Amigas on the Hyperion Forums.  I have three printers (a Dell 5130cdn duplex & color, an HP inkjet, and a Samsung BW laser) connected and switched with an Xicon script.  I use the Postscript (Dell), Generic (Samsung) and HP printer drivers that come with OS4.1 but Turboprint does work, if needed.  I get excellent output  from AmiPDF, FinalWriter, and Page stream  (68k).  Plus, no switch-box is needed.

[gertsy]

turbo print will only be good for pre year 2k printers. Believe it or not when I was with Genesi we approached IrseeSoft what it would take to make new drivers for Morphos based on Linux drivers they had. It was in the 10s of thousands iirc. Basically they were busy working with the Linux drivers and industrial customers or something.

Also, afaik Morphos team is working on porting the CUPS linux printing system. Which will be awesome.

There is another guy (terminillus) around that is working on new printer drivers for classics and NG.

CUPS is a UNIX printing subsystem but very useful none the less.

Also suggest it you've got a choice between PCL an postscript, go PCL. Much less data.

[Geit]

turbo print will only be good for pre year 2k printers. Believe it or not when I was with Genesi we approached IrseeSoft what it would take to make new drivers for Morphos based on Linux drivers they had.

Thats not true. Just check the printer specs to support PCL4 or PCL5 (maybe with PCL6, but NOT PCL6 alone!!) many printer support these languages as they were handled as standard until HP broke compatiblity with PCL6, which failed.

Many companies still support PCL in at least a few printer models. Especially laser printers and even color laser printers.

All you need to do is picking a LaserJet printer from driver portfolio and give it a go. I am using a Brother FAX for printing over network, as well as a stand alone printer. Both using a random laserjet PCL driver.

Also getting a printer supporting AirPrint (which is the future in driverless printing) and postscript is a good idea.

 Geit

[chris]

What I do, is use a Raspberry Pi with CUPS on it, as my print server.  You can chuck anything you like at it (in theory, although I use PostScript) and it'll translate for the printer attached.

When it was directly connected I just used the LJ4 driver.  It's a basic PCL5 driver that works with most monochrome lasers, as Geit said.