Network HP LaserJet 5 can't find xxd or mpage & doesnt p

[GeoffS]

I have a LaserJet 5MP (and a Canon BJC6000) hanging off a print server running "The Low Cost Print Server" a small Linux that loads off a floppy - it works fine with Windows XP
My Puppy machine can ping the print server OK.
When I try to print though I get a brief msg that 'problems were encounted'. If I look at the the error log in xpdq it says it can't find 'xxd' (the hex dump module) or 'mpage' (the multi page module) also that the 'interface_command_path' is missing.
Then it tries to print but never succeeds - just nothing happens and after 30 tries the job is aborted

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[GeoffS]

No replies - so, as I have advanced (a little) I will start a new thread

[jeffrey]

I hit that one last night myself on Puppy Linux 1.0.8 with an HP1100.
It looks like xxd and mpage are missing from the Puppy distribution.
The file /etc/pdq/drivers/misc/hp-laserjet-5-0.9 contains lines indicating that these programs are required.
A workaround is to mimic their existence by linking bogus copies of them to something tame, such as /bin/true, ie
ln -s /bin/true /usr/local/bin/xxd
ln -s /bin/true /usr/local/bin/mpage

[GeoffS]

Jeffrey - search for the threads re Cups - that seems to be the only way to go - You might need TurboPrint also. None of it is very difficult, I'm a total Linux newbie and stumbled my way thru!
Cheers

[jeffrey]

I should have said that it did actually print fine from Puppy Linux via Windows 98 to the HP laser printer. My patches render the mpage (multiple pages per sheet) and xxd (duplexing) options ineffective, which doesn't worry me at this point. From the hp-laserjet-5-0.9 script it refers to the RedHat mpage being bundled with vim-common.rpm, so it looks like these utilities are add-ons, but the script will fail without them.