[CLUE-Tech] Printing to HP PSC2175xi printer using samba?

[Jim Ockers]

Hi everyone,

Well I have a HP PSC2175xi all-in-one multifunction device
which features a color printer, scanner, memory card reader,
and copier.  It is a pretty nifty device.

There is Linux support for this device.  I'm using it under
Red Hat Enterprise WS.  Once I downloaded the newest hpoj
drivers from http://hpoj.sourceforge.net/ (I think I had
to get hpoj-0.91.tgz) I was able to get it set up and working
under Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS comes with hpoj-0.90 which does 
not properly support this printer, especially for scanning.

So once I got everything set up and working OK under Linux,
then I shared the printer on the network using samba, so
I could print to this printer from a Windows 2000 machine.

Unfortunately it seems that this is impossible, since HP's
stupid driver CD contains only USB drivers.  I have tried
everything I can think of (http://tahoua.ockers.net/psc2175/)
to no avail.

It seems that if you use the HP Deskjet 695C driver under
Windows 2000, then you can at least print in color and things
look OK.  However, there are no native HP2175xi drivers any-
where on the CD which will support a network install.  You
need the native drivers, of course, to print photos and other
high resolution stuff which the printer supposedly supports.

I put a list of everything I tried (with screen shots) at 
http://tahoua.ockers.net/psc2175/ .

I think it is really, really STUPID of HP to claim that
Windows 2000 is a "supported" platform when the only way to
talk to the printer is over a USB cable.  It is a real
problem for me to not be able to not be able to print to this
printer using the native Windows 2000 drivers over a network.

How hard can it be to make a plain winspool driver for win32
if you already have the USB drivers written?  All of the drivers
on the huge (300+ MB) CD are for some "dot4usb" device and won't
work without the USB connection.

Anyone have any ideas?

It has been suggested that I call 1-800-HP-INVENT to resolve
this issue.  It is very unlikely that the call center employee
is going to be able to provide any useful assistance for this
problem; I'm pretty sure that would be a big waste of my time.

As far as Linux support goes, it's pretty good.  The memory 
card reader shows up as /dev/sda and works as expected.  The 
printer is accessed by cups using ptal:/mlc:usb:PSC_2170_Series.
The scanner is accessed using a similar mlc device name, but
setting sane to "auto" mode for hpoj works fine.

Thanks,
Jim

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: please see http://www.ockers.net/