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Date:      Mon, 4 Dec 95 17:46:51 MET
From:      marino.ladavac@aut.alcatel.at
To:        gshaffer@cod.nosc.mil (Gregory M. Shaffer) (Gregory M. Shaffer)
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: LaserJet Problems
Message-ID:  <9512041644.AA12647@atuhc16.atusks01.aut.alcatel.at>
In-Reply-To: <9512040518.AA17194@cod.nosc.mil>; from "Gregory M. Shaffer" at Dec 3, 95 9:18 pm

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> -------
> Recently, I aquired a HP LaserJet 4P printer that I hooked up to
> my FreeBSD/Windows system. I am running 2.1.0-RELEASE with
> apsfilter 4.9.2 and ghostscript 3.51. I am having problems getting
> output from the printer. I get no output when I print a PostScript
> file or ascii file. Sometimes I will get output when I print a file
> as 'raw', but it is never complete. I know the printer is hooked
> up correctly because I get great output when I print from Windows.

> Has anybody been successful using a HP LaserJet 4 on a FreeBSD system?
> If so what did you do to get it to work?

There are two likely problems that you are encountering.

One of them is the sorry state of the FreeBSD lpt driver (don't throw 
veggies at me folks, please :)  Sometimes, it's just slow, as if it were
missing interrupts.  I don't know what it is, and cannot afford to try
another kernel on my only BSD machine.  Usually, the driver will get to
behave better once the device has been closed, and then it keeps running
okay.  Usually...

What I do to resolve this state is that I send a couple of printer resets
at the machine power-up, hoping that there is nothing else queued for the
printer.

The other problem could be one of those PnP software configurable sound
cards emulating Sound Blaster.  I've had some different ones (all with
UMC chipset) and they seem to occupy IRQ 7 at power-up, even though they are
not fully initialized at that time.

Either move your printer interrupt elsewhere (beware, the sound card might
be occupying the IRQ 5 for the MPU-UART) or boot DOS first and configure 
the casrd elsewhere (followed with CTRL-ALT-DEL or, perhaps fbsdboot.)

Good luck,

/Alby

> Thanks
> Greg Shaffer

> -------




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