HP LaserJet 4000 PostScript PPD buggy

[Jean Tourrilhes]

When I upgraded my Debian system from Squeeze to Wheezy, I had two problems with printing.
My printer is a HP LaserJet 4000, with a JetDirect card and plenty of memory (384KB). I'm using the PostScript PPD, because the other PPDs don't allow me to select most printer options. The printer was working fine in Squeeze.

I had to fix two problems to make my printer work in the new version of CUPS (1.5.3) and hp-drivers (3.12.6).

The first problem is an issue I had already fixed in Squeeze, and needed to fix again. The PPD for the HP LaserJet 4000 is misisng a critical postscript workaround. The HP LaserJet 4000 and HP LaserJet 4050 are effectively the same printer, just a faster processor (I know, I also have a 4050). The fix was to extract the workaround from the PPD for the 4050 and insert that in the PPD for the 4000. The other differences between the PPDs are related to job storage, and I don't use that which is why I did not try to backport it.
The patch for the PPD for the 4000 is attached. The original file name seems to be HP4000_5.PPD.

The second problem, which is new is Wheezy, is that PDF to PS renderer need to be changed. The default, GostScript, absolutely choke the printer. After many minutes, either the printer print an error message, or just stop processing witout printing anything.
To change the renderer, I needed to do :
lpadmin -p <printer-name> -o pdftops-renderer-default=pdftops

The documentation claim that changing the rendered will loose color accuracy, which is most likely not an issue for a black and white printer. I hope it's possible to change the default renderer for all those old printers so that printer drivers work out of the box, because tracking down those things takes time.

Thanks !

Jean

[Mathew Hodson (mhodson)]

This is fixed in Ubuntu Trusty and later.
---

hplip (3.14.3-0ubuntu2) trusty; urgency=low

  * debian/local/HP-LaserJet_4000-PostScript-PPD.patch, debian/rules: Patch
    PPD file for the HP LaserJet 4000 to use the same JobPatchFile as the
    LaserJet 4050. It seems that the 4000 has the same PS interpreter bug to
    work around. Note that it is not possible to use the standard mechanisms
    for patches as HP ships all PPDs compressed (Closed: #742766).
 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Thu, 27 Mar 2014 17:20:00 +0100