How to use HP Deskjet 3915 USB printer?

[DaveS]

I've been administering this forum for some years and I have yet to see even the rankest beginner who did not comprehend what he was doing when he told this Linux forum "It works in Windows." I've said it myself. It's a useful piece of information to add, when you ask for help getting your hardware to work.

You and I will just have to disagree on this.

From what I have seen it is almost always the rankest beginner who does this.

I don't find it useful, because the reason they are trying to use whichever piece of equipment is because they had it for their Windows use. I don't know of any reasonable person who would waste time trying to get broken equipment to work with Linux. Do you? The printer works with Windows; that's why they want to get it working with Linux. It is plain common sense.

ieee, could you, please, take this argument elsewhere -- it doesn't help me one iota to get my printer going.

Thanks, jc

With you on this one jc. You have been a bit unlucky. Normally this is the most helpful forum you could want.

[jakobcornelis]

JC:

I just installed my printer on a new partition.
1.Used the hpijs from the puppy package manager.
2.Generated a ppd file from this site.

http://openprinting.org/show_driver.cgi ... skJet_3930

3.Maybe yours will work with a 3845 or 3920 ppd. Download both.
4. The files download to my documents; move them to /usr/share/cups/model.
5.run cups setup again.

rjb

Thanks, rjb. I may have to wait to try this until I get back home from being away in a few days.

I've been experimenting with different versions of CUPS (with no success), but the CUPS download site is getting very, very slow. This is all under the assumption that CUPS is the normal way to go, and that it ought to be able to handle my printer, which is a run-of-the-mill , off the shelf item, as far as I know.

jc

PS: I decided that before I try anything else, I'll go back to basics and try CUPS again; I think I may have been doing something wrong with that.

PPS: rjb, I followed in your footsteps as far as I could. However, in the CUPS setup I am asked for "Device for HP", with several choices. Which is it? I would be totally guessing.

[jakobcornelis]

Hi, rj et al: It seems I get furthest with the CUPS printer install if I choose the the universal deskjet.ppd driver; when trying to print the test page I am informed the page is being processed, with an % completed indication. In the end, it reports the job as completed. However: the printer isn't printing.

With any other driver I get no action at all, with a notification that: ."....foomatic-rip-hplip failed....".

Anyone know what this means? Am I still missing something?

Jc

[rjbrewer]

jc:

Cups is a real teaser.
These old printers can act a bit weird too. Mine got out of wack
recently and I had to remove cartridges, clean contacts, turn
back on, install cartridges. If the light is blinking before you
hit print test page, it won't print.
If you don't get it working I'll do a reinstall of mine this week end
and make a detailed step by step account for you.

rjb

[jakobcornelis]

jc:

Cups is a real teaser.
These old printers can act a bit weird too. Mine got out of wack
recently and I had to remove cartridges, clean contacts, turn
back on, install cartridges. If the light is blinking before you
hit print test page, it won't print.
If you don't get it working I'll do a reinstall of mine this week end
and make a detailed step by step account for you.

rjb

Don't do that, rj. I'd feel awful if your printer got hung up too.

[rjbrewer]

No problem;

I've done it lots of times; and never pay more than 5 bucks for
a printer.
Hopefully I'll find one with ink in the cartridges someday.

rjb

[paperwall08]

I think that's exactly why so many people say "It works in XP" -- so that after they go to all the trouble of describing their problem, someone won't ask, "Are you sure that the printer itself is working?"

I disagree.

My belief is that most of the time people are trying to use a peripheral that currently works with Windows with Linux. That's why they write that "It works in XP", because that is their current point of reference.

I've been administering this forum for some years and I have yet to see even the rankest beginner who did not comprehend what he was doing when he told this Linux forum "It works in Windows." I've said it myself. It's a useful piece of information to add, when you ask for help getting your hardware to work.

I strongly agree. One should never assume that a newbie to Linux is a newbie to computing or a dolt because they ask a basic Linux question like "Where do I find my drives?". My love for Computing began when my father showed me a military super computer in 1962. It took up an entire large building, was surrounded with a catwalk and there were dozens of Computer-Sci men in lab coats running around the cat walk. When I saw some of them programming the memory bank lights with teletypewriters to play a game we knew later as Pong, I was fascinated. When I heard that mystical machine speak, I was hooked.

I've been PC computing since Sir Clive Sinclair came out with a small white 9 volt computer in 1977 that looked like a calculator. When I switched to Linux about a year ago, I asked some very basic questions here which I began with "my printer or my scanner, etc worked with Windows and my old DOS PC" and I said this to save time. If you do not say that, you usually get several: "Are you sure it works?" responses, which is also a normal thing to say.

"The More I Learn, The Less I Think I Know"

[jakobcornelis]

As a "rank beginner", it never occurred to me to broach the subject of this thread in anything other than this beginners' forum. Imagine my surprise when I found a discussion prompted by another recalcitrant HP Deskjet 3915 in the HOWTO forum, which attracted the attention of even BarryK himself.

Even there, my problem failed to find a solution. Near desperate, but Just for the heck of it, I hooked up my old Canon BJC 2000 (parallel), and within five minutes got CUPS to install it and coax it into printing stuff on paper.

So what gives? Well, maybe CUPS doesn't like HP, or vice versa.

I just want to thank the folks that helped me search for a solution to my problem of getting my HP Deskjet 3915 working with CUPS. I'll be keeping my eyes open for anything that might lead to a solution, but meanwhile I'll stick with my old Canon. At least now I can print.

That was the only essential element missing after I started using Puppy. I want to say here, although speaking to the converted, that Puppy has been a delightful experience, after a bogged down (even though newly installed) Windows XP, which seemed to oblige me to expend endless hours on all kinds of fixes that didn't work. I finally had to say, enough is enough.

I am greatly impressed with the helpful attitude of the people on this forum; I hope that one day I can give something back -- when I actually know something to give back.

Thanks, folks!

jakobcornelis

[Subito Piano]

jakob -- glad you got a working printer, glad you were patient with the side arguments on this thread. Not typical for Puppy in my experience.

I got here months later because i am having a similar problem. I'm a bit surprised no one told you that some printers just WON'T WORK with Linux. Oh, maybe theoretically they all can, but nobody likes giving hours and hours to this kind of stuff.

HP supposedly is supportive of Linux....but not always. The DeskJets between 700 - 1000 (?) are generally not very cooperative. Beware the "Designed for Windows" sticker! On the other hand, Lexmark used to be anathema to Linux, but i think less so now.

Dialup modems are another nightmare -- at least for us mere mortals.

The point in all this is simple -- your cooperative Canon will someday break down. When you go looking for another printer or other hardware, poke around on the internet for the models that work well with Puppy and are easily installed, and buy accordingly. As you know, the major hardware players are understandably concerned with profit far more that in cooperating with the relatively small Linux crowd. You may find yourself happily buying someone else's "outdated" printer for a fraction of it original cost and having it serve you well for years!

And a note of thanks to those unknown but wonderful Linux geeks who are constantly reverse-engineering to get hardware working with Linux and freely sharing the fruit of their labor with all.