LaserJet 2100 on Mageia/Mandriva

[DShelbyD]

Please bear with me, as this is a little hard to follow:

#10 envelope printing with my trusty, if elderly, LaserJet 2100 has ceased to work in Mandriva and Mageia. The printing either does not occur at all (Mandriva) or it's badly off the mark and upside down (in Mageia). For years I have used a self-created envelope template from the #10 envelope paper size, landscape (saved as a .ott) in OOo and now LO to print single envelopes. Typically I install the printer while selecting for the driver an old PPD with the term "pxlmono" in the name. It was noted as "preferred" years ago, so I downloaded it from somewhere and kept a copy handy for installations of that printer in Linux. I've used it successfully multiple times. I've probably worn it out. (I've also tried other drivers for the 2100 but none works.)

I posted about this problem in Mandriva's forum believing in my heart of hearts it was an issue peculiar to Mandriva and, perhaps, unique to me. But now it has bit me with Mageia 1. I also have a LaserJet p3005, and the envelope template works for both. I wish I could document when it stopped working -- that is, after such and such an update. I only know it would not work last night and had worked whenever I last printed an envelope ... could have been some weeks ago.

Happily, I am able to print envelopes from the same template using the 2100 (and the p3005) in the Alpha of Mageia 2. The latest releases of Fedora, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, or Mint do not present any issue. The version of LO there is from the standard repositories, as is the one used in Mandriva and Mageia.

To my thinking (which is always suspect) there is a clue to the issue in that drivers for OS 10.7.3 cannot be used to print my envelope template in LO 3.5, to which I updated a couple of days ago. My hunch is that OSX has simply dropped support for this old printer. I'm not sure one can retrieve a driver from the HP website any more, but I should check to be sure. Thus, it may be that the printer has reached EOL in terms of driver support everywhere, and it will be only a matter of a short while before it won't print that envelope template in any distribution. Does that sound as if it could be correct? Could that be the problem, or is it my paranoia at work? Isn't it strange that it is a problem only in Mandriva and Mageia 1?

There is another method for printing envelopes using Insert -- Envelope. It will work, so I'm not completely at a loss in Mageia 1. I'm just obsessively curious about why it suddenly stopped working for the template I've used all these years. "All these years" makes me sound old, and I'm just a year older than Wobo!!! Young!!!!

[doktor5000]

Typically I install the printer while selecting for the driver an old PPD with the term "pxlmono" in the name. It was noted as "preferred" years ago, so I downloaded it from somewhere and kept a copy handy for installations of that printer in Linux. I've used it successfully multiple times. I've probably worn it out. (I've also tried other drivers for the 2100 but none works.)
[...]
Thus, it may be that the printer has reached EOL in terms of driver support everywhere, and it will be only a matter of a short while before it won't print that envelope template in any distribution. Does that sound as if it could be correct? Could that be the problem, or is it my paranoia at work? Isn't it strange that it is a problem only in Mandriva and Mageia 1?!

For one, there's certainly no expiry date, however most vendors would certainly like to implement those

You're correct, openprinting mentions pxlmono as recommended driver, but as you can see from: http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_2100
there are also many other working drivers, but i'd like you to try one of the the hplip drivers. According to http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/mo ... _2100.html it is fully supported. Or try one of the other drivers.

If it still doesn't work, you should attach your /etc/cups/printers.conf and /var/log/cups/error_log

[DShelbyD]

doktor, thanks for your research and reply. I have tried almost all of the alternate drivers. Some hang the printer (i.e., it never responds to the print command) and others give the same result as the preferred Foomatic/pxlmono. On one test I printed the envelope using a full sheet of US Letter size paper. The printing occurred, but it was upside down on the bottom of the page. Another printed portrait instead of landscape (this envelope paper size is 9.50 x 4.13 inches rotated landscape), but it has to go through the printer portrait, as it will not fit in the tray landscape.

Now, as for attaching the two files, I try to upload the files and nothing appears to be happening, so I don't know what to do. All I get is "The extension is not allowed" for the /var/log/cups/error_log. Nothing for the other. The upload mechanism is either not working or I'm just pitiful.

[doktor5000]

Can you try to export your file to PDF and print that from outside Libreoffice?

To attach the files, it could be that you have to rename them to .txt files.

[DShelbyD]

Can you try to export your file to PDF and print that from outside Libreoffice?

I read a thread a few days ago where someone suggested that, so I tried it. It looks like the same envelope in PDF, but the printer has the same trouble with it. Nothing prints. I should try that same experiment within a distro that does not have this problem with the envelope template.

To attach the files, it could be that you have to rename them to .txt files.

Bingo! (and permissions had to be changed)

printers.conf.txt

printers.conf

(1.09 KiB) Downloaded 202 times

error_log.txt

error_log

(225 KiB) Downloaded 205 times

[doktor5000]

From reading the logs seems it's using one of the hplip drivers, also there are some gutenprint and ghostscript errors, and some filters failing, but it doesn't make much sense to me overall. When you mentioned you tried all the drivers, how did you change between them? Via MCC? Maybe you should try again, first you need to remove the PPDs from /etc/cups/ppds then remove the printer via cups web frontend, and then readd it from there. That gives you a better choice over the available printer drivers.

[DShelbyD]

I used MCC to switch among the various available drivers yesterday, but I chose to start with a "clean" driver each time rather than copying over the settings from the previous driver. I also tried using the CUPS web interface yesterday, and got no further in printing an envelope from the template.

Today I not only deleted the PPD for the 2100 but also deleted all of CUPS and reinstalled (I know this is not Windows, but I hoped to clean out all residuals from a mixture of drivers that might be giving problems). While there were no PPDs in the /etc/cups/ppd folder following re-installation, both of the LaserJet printers appeared in the web interface even before I installed printers. I guess the system saw them ahead of time. But after all that and after modifying the 2100 from the CUPS interface and trying the "hpcups 3.11.7" driver as well as the Foomatic/pxlmono, the envelope template still comes out blank. It prints correctly in the p3005 laserjet.

I noticed a detail for the first time: the Foomatic/pxlmono driver on the printout of the printer test page says at the end of the driver name "(color, 2-sided printing)" when I use the pxlmono driver from the CUPS web interface. The one I have on file, an older version, I suppose, says "(grayscale, 2-sided printing)." That's a significant difference in the driver, in my opinion. If the newer driver assumes this machine prints color (it never has), who knows what else has changed.

All of this leads me to believe that the drivers are deprecated in one way or another in the rpm packages from Mageia/Mandriva that are in Mandriva 2011 and Mageia 1 (To restate what I also said above, there is no problem in Mageia 2 Alpha 3 with this envelope template). But there's no point in rebuilding these rpms, if that is the problem. I said in my initial note upstream that I have the alternative of using the Insert --> Envelope in LibreOffice, but, while that works for OS X Lion and LO 3.5, it does not work for Mageia 1.

I've only tried the hpcups 3.11.7 and the Foomatic/pxlmono drivers this round of trials.

One more thing: This printer is routinely identified as "HP LaserJet 2011 Series." I've learned over the years that when the word "series" appears, that means a postscript driver will be installed by default, and my first task, then, is to change it to the Foomatic/pxlmono; but this printer is the lower-end 2100se to which I have added a network card to make it the equivalent, I think, of a 2100TN.

While I am appreciative of any additional thoughts about this issue, my inclination is to keep abreast of the Mageia 2 development to ensure that the Foomatic/pxlmono driver will continue to work there, thus stopping the beating of my head against a wall on this pesky issue involving Mageia 1 and the comatose, not-likely-to-survive Mandriva 2011.

[DShelbyD]

Following up after installing Mageia 2 Beta 1, I created a #10 envelope and it prints correctly in the LaserJet 2100.

[wintpe]

I have this printer and have no probs printing from mga1

I tend to use the pcl5 driver, i find the postscript driver just takes to long to print.

I have the 2100m

Regards peter

[DShelbyD]

I set up the printer in the same way, using the pxlmomo driver as with Mageia 2. Envelopes came out of the printer blank. It is a very strange issue, and I haven't the foggiest notion of what is wrong with the ROSA system.

Did some investigating again this morning and discovered "/usr/lib/cups/filter/hpcups failed." Others have had that problem on other systems with other printers. It seems to be related to the version of hpcups. But that is ROSA, and this is Mageia 2, where there is no problem. "I'm just sayin'" that it's a problem that is out there. The solution for some is to login to localhost:631 and configure there, but ROSA will not allow me to login to localhost:631. ECHO: But that is ROSA, and this is Mageia 2. Not to belabor the point or anything like that ....