splix printer driver does not work with Samsung ML-1610

I've also found the Samsung ML-1610 to work with ML-1710 (gdi recommended) driver for text and graphics.

With either one, however, I've also seen flaky behavior occasionally, at least under Breezy. Didn't upgrade to Dapper on this system until yesterday.

It would nevertheless be interesting to understand why when you run `gksudo linux-config` to add the printer using the software delivered by Samsung, you cannot actually add the printer configuration. Seems like it doesn't play well with cups somehow...

Hmm... Looks like this may be due to flakiness in what Samsung has delivered. A bit of googling led to an explanation of their PPD file being incompatible, http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/general-list/2006q1/007279.html

That definitely seems to be the case on my system:

$ cupstestppd /usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/ML-1610spl2.ppd
/usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/ML-1610spl2.ppd: FAIL
      **FAIL** REQUIRED DefaultImageableArea
                REF: Page 102, section 5.15.
      **FAIL** REQUIRED PageRegion
                REF: Page 100, section 5.14.
      **FAIL** BAD Product - not "(string)".
                REF: Page 62, section 5.3.
      **FAIL** Bad Resolution choice 600!
                REF: Page 84, section 5.9
      **FAIL** Bad Resolution choice 300!
                REF: Page 84, section 5.9
        WARN DefaultLinuxGDIBand has no corresponding options!
        WARN PCFileName longer than 8.3 in violation of PPD spec.
                REF: Pages 61-62, section 5.3.

So I've hacked the PPD file from Samsung, leaving only the warning about DefaultLinuxGDIBand. (I guess that could be looked up.) The test page prints okay.

$ diff /usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/ML-1610spl2.ppd /usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/hacked.ppd
6c6
< *PCFileName: "ML-1610spl2.ppd"
---
> *PCFileName: "HACKED.PPD"
8c8
< *Product: "ML-1610"
---
> *Product: "(ML-1610)"
31,33c31,33
< *DefaultResolution: 600
< *Resolution 600/600 DPI: "<</HWResolution[600 600]>>setpagedevice"
< *Resolution 300/300 DPI: "<</HWResolution[300 300]>>setpagedevice"
---
> *DefaultResolution: 600x600dpi
> *Resolution 600x600dpi/600 DPI: "<</HWResolution[600 600]>>setpagedevice"
> *Resolution 300x300dpi/300 DPI: "<</HWResolution[300 300]>>setpagedevice"
67a68,87
> *OpenUI *PageRegion: PickOne
> *OrderDependency: 99 AnySetup *PageRegion
> *DefaultPageRegion: Letter
> *PageRegion Letter/Letter: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=Letter"
> *PageRegion A4/A4: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=A4"
> *PageRegion A5/A5: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=A5"
> *PageRegion A6/A6: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=A6"
> *PageRegion B5JIS/B5 (JIS): "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=B5JIS"
> *PageRegion Env10/Envelope #10: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=Env10"
> *PageRegion EnvB5/Envelope B5: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=EnvB5"
> *PageRegion EnvC5/Envelope C5: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=EnvC5"
> *PageRegion EnvC6/Envelope C6: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=EnvC6"
> *PageRegion EnvDL/Envelope DL: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=EnvDL"
> *PageRegion EnvMonarch/Envelope Monarch: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=EnvMonarch"
> *PageRegion Executive/Executive: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=Executive"
> *PageRegion Folio/Folio: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=Folio"
> *PageRegion Legal/Legal: "%% FoomaticRIPOptionSetting: PageSize=Legal"
> *CloseUI: *PageRegion
>
> *DefaultImageableArea: Letter

$ cupstestppd /usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/hacked.ppd /usr/local/linuxprinter/ppd/C/hacked.ppd: PASS
        WARN DefaultLinuxGDIBand has no ...

i tried to use the Samsung original driver for linux but the ppd don't work (i tried the setup, and i tried the manual ppd installation). That's way i use the ML-1510 from Dapper. It doesn't work with ML-1710 from Dapper.

The hacked ppd, perhaps, does nothing useful. So I set the printer to ml-1510 (gdi).
The printer works but only at 600 dpi.
If I set 300dpi it prints always only garbage lines.
Do you have the same behaviour?

When samsung will provide an updated driver?

Hmm, yes, I think you're right. Should've tested it further. Sorry about that.

It prints html,pdf. But lpr doesn't work:
lpr: Could not initialize LPP printing system

See also bug 39465 (https://launchpad.net/bugs/39465).

I have uploaded new printer and driver entries for Samsung lasers to linuxprinting.org. Probably the best choice for you is using the new "splix" driver. I highly recommend that it gets added to Ubuntu Linux.

Yes, the splix driver does seem to print a smoother test page with the Samsung ML-1610 printer. Making this my new default.

I'm using the ML-2250 driver as suggested at http://splix.ap2c.org/

Thanks very much.

New foomatic-db with explicit entry for ML-1610 will soon appear in Edgy.

well, it still doesn't work. although ML-1610 is available and splix driver is recommendated, choosing splix driver doesn't work. after run gnome-cups-add on console it has ended with:

Selected ppd file = foomatic:Samsung-ML-1000-gdi.ppd
Selected ppd file = foomatic:Samsung-ML-1610-splix.ppd

** (gnome-cups-add:17162): WARNING **: IPP request failed with status 1280

and error_log contains:

E [30/Sep/2006:21:23:25 +0200] copy_model: empty PPD file!
E [30/Sep/2006:21:23:25 +0200] PID 17231 (/usr/lib/cups/daemon/cups-driverd) stopped with status 9!
E [30/Sep/2006:21:23:25 +0200] [CGI] foomatic: There is neither a custom PPD file nor the driver database entry contains sufficient data to build a PPD file.

there is no Samsung-ML-1610-splix.ppd file on my machine

Reopening and confirming. The splix driver does not work at all.

Till, is it possible to set the recommended driver back to gdi?

I have packaged a new version of the foomatic-db-engine package which prevents CUPS from listing printer/driver combos for which Foomatic does not provide a PPD file.

Martin can you upload my newest foomatic-db-engine from

http://www.freestandards.org/~till/tmp/ubuntu/edgy/foomatic-db-engine/

Thanks.

Just tested the new version, works great again. Thank you!

I uploaded it, thus I close the bug now.

I have packaged the SpliX driver for Ubuntu now. Please try this package:

http://www.freestandards.org/~till/tmp/ubuntu/feisty/splix/binary/splix_1.0.1~beta2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

Source package files are here:

http://www.freestandards.org/~till/tmp/ubuntu/feisty/splix/

This will make the printing with your ML-1610 much more reliable, especially with large images.

Till, can you build package for edgy?