[NTLUG:Discuss] Is CUPS a slow printer

[Kelledin]

> I am using CUPS as a print server.   It seems to be slow in all programs.
> Is that CUPS or is there something I need to change.
> I am using Mandrake 8.1 as the installation program installed it.
> The machine is a Biostar with Duron 700, 192 meg ram.
> Printer is a LaserJet 6P

I'm using a LaserJet 6L attached to my main box, with CUPS making the printer 
available to the other CUPS-enabled boxen on my home network.  The CUPS 
distribution itself has a generic LaserJet driver that works with it, but it 
doesn't keep a continuous paper feed when it can.  It prints a page, waits a 
second, and then warms up to print the next page.  This causes printing to be 
a little slow.

The ideal solution would be for HP to produce a CUPS driver themselves, but 
they apparently feel it's unnecessary, since the printer does still work in 
Linux.  Someday, I'll probably take the time to try a driver from gimp-print; 
the drivers found in that package invariably do better than the generic CUPS 
drivers.  Right now the problem doesn't bother me enough to go through all 
the hassle.

In the meantime, you might also check and see if DMA is enabled on your 
parallel port.  "cat /proc/sys/dev/parport/parport*/{irq,dma}" should tell 
you the IRQ and DMA channel used by the kernel's parallel port driver, or -1 
if such things aren't enabled.

To enable parallel-port DMA on old 2.2.x kernels, you should use tunelp from 
the util-linux package.  To enable parallel-port DMA on newer 2.4.x kernels, 
you probably need to pass options to the kernel at boot-time (if parport 
support is compiled into the kernel) or at insmod time (if parport support is 
compiled as a module).  If you have the kernel sources installed properly, 
then /usr/src/linux/Documentation/parport.txt should give you some tips for 
the necessary options.

--
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does it still cost 
four figures to fix?"