A Happy Slacker :)
 

This is not about a problem, it's about success with Linux

You see, I've been having to rely on Windows for my printing needs, since I have one of those cheap Lexmark inkjet "WinPrinters" (Lexmark Z11). LinuxPrinting.org does have a driver for it, but they classify it just above "paperweight", and can be found on this page: LinuxPrinting.org Lexmark Z11 listing.

I was able to get it to work, sort of, with RH but the page margins were way off, printing from the top left corner only. With Slackware, I couldn't get it to print at all, even with the same driver installed. I had it working with cups in RH, and it didn't seem to work in Slack.

So, after more digging around, I finally realized that while the necessary foomatic gs-wrapper was present, the foomatic database wasn't installed in Slack. Since I had the sources for foomatic-db, foomatic-db-engine, foomatic-filters, and foomatic-filters-ppds, I made slackpacks from these sources and installed them. The PPDs weren't really necessary (and quite large) since I already had the Z11 ppd, but I did it anyway.

Anyway, after installing the foomatic db, the printer started working in Slack..............Not only that, the borders were correct as well..................And not only that, it seems to print better than with the Windows drivers. It is a bit slower, but only because I'm unable to spool the job before printing. (In Windows, I had it start printing only after the whole job was spooled.) But I can live with that. And I also can't change the DPI much in Linux, but it works fine for my purposes so it doesn't matter. I can only change it a little above or below 600 DPI, while it's capable of 300, 600, and 1200 in Windows. Yet I can change the setting for saving on the ink, with more ink settings than with the Windows driver.

All-in-all, that was my biggest hurdle in being completely independent from Windows, I am very, very, happy. I really like Linux, especially Slackware. This distro has been good to me right out of the box, and I've tried several distros. And it just keeps getting better and better.......:D

slack is little boring
cause u don't have any problem to solve
:p

lolol........that just gives ya more time for tweaking ;)

thegeekster,
You mentioned in your post that you couldn't print in color. I was wondering if you tried the lexmark propietary driver? I used their driver with the lexmark-foomatic-kit from linuxprinting.org. and during installation it asks me which cartridges are installed. This was done under mandrake 9.1. I once tried the driver using rpm2tgz on slack 9.1 to no avail, but I didnt have foomatic installed either. Just wondering if you tried lexmarks driver or not.

I didn't say anything about not being able to print in color, since I really don't know if I can. All I use is the B/W cartridge. I also installed the Lexmark driver I found at LinuxPrinting.org (see the link in my post above) before I installed foomatic, and it wasn't until I installed foomatic before I could print anything. By that I mean jobs were sent to the printer, but nothing happened, nothing would get printed.....................I found I needed foomatic to make it work with cups...............And if I remember right, foomatic was insatalled by default in RH, but it isn't in Slack.