HP 7760 and CUPS: a winning combination (or not)

[Stefan Bruda]

Hi.

Here is a strange problem: I have a HP Photosmart 7760.  On my Gentoo
box (my machine) I installed cups, foomatic and hpijs, I downloaded
the PPD file for the printer from http://linuxprinting.org, and that's
it; went to CUPS configuration page, chose the right PPD from the
list, and the printer happily started printing.

On the YDL box (my wife's machine), I believe I yummed the same things
(though from bits and pieces as is usual with RPM-based systems), to
be more precise I have:

Name                                 Arch   Version         Repo
------------------------------------------------------------------------
cups                                 ppc    1:1.1.17-13.3   db
cups-devel                           ppc    1:1.1.17-13.3   db
cups-drivers                         ppc    1.9-1.20020617.6 db
cups-drivers-hpijs                   ppc    1.9-1.20020617.6 db
cups-drivers-pnm2ppa                 ppc    1.9-1.20020617.6 db
cups-libs                            ppc    1:1.1.17-13.3   db
hpijs                                ppc    1.3-32.1        db
foomatic                             ppc    2.0.2-15.1      db

I then downloaded the PPD from the same place, put it into
/usr/share/cups/model/foomatic/HP (no familiar /usr/share/ppd on the
YDL box), and started the configuration page.  Things looked good, I
was able to select the PPD and everything, except that affterwards the
printer prints nothing, it just drops jobs on the floor.  The culprit
seems to be foomatic, I get in the logs:

I [23/Jul/2004:10:57:00 -0400] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 23086) for job 13.
I [23/Jul/2004:10:57:00 -0400] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip (PID 23087) for job 13.
I [23/Jul/2004:10:57:00 -0400] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb (PID 23088) for job 13.
E [23/Jul/2004:10:57:00 -0400] PID 23087 stopped with status 22!

FWIW strerror() says that 22 means "Invalid argument."

If I set the PPD to generic CUPS HP DeskJet I can print fine, but
obviously I cannot take full advanntage of the printer's features.
This is not terribly important, my wife prints mostly monochrome text
for which the CUPS driver is appropriate enough, but by now this is my
itch: the thing does work perfectly under Gentoo, why not YDL?  Any
ideas?

<holy war startup>
I am in fact getting more and more frustrated with administering an
RPM-based machine as opposed to my beloved Gentoo, so it might be that
the easiest solution is to simply switch my wife's box to Gentoo, she
will probably appreciate the look and feel of GNOME 2.6 and I will
probably appreciate the ease of administration. :-)
</holy war startup>


Thanks in advance,
Stefan

-- 
If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as
it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.
    --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass