How to make printer print faster?

[Marco Beishuizen]

On stardate Wed, 10 Dec 2003, the wise Chris Howells entered:

> I have a similiar "issue" with a HP LaserJet 4 Plus, which is capable of
> 12ppm. It's connected to my network using a JetDirect card on 100mbit switch,
> so speed of the interface shouldn't be an issue. I'm using the hpijs drivers
> currently. I would also agree that it seems to print more slowly than in
> Windows. My impression is that the LaserJet 4 is quite an old printer and has
> a relatively slow processor and therefore seems to spend quite a long time
> processing each page. I don't know for sure but I think it's just simply that
> it has to do more processing for UNIX print jobs.
>
> E.g. on WIndows it looks something like this:
>
> Application > PCL -> Printer
>
> On FreeBSD, mine does something like this:
>
> Application -> PostScript -> PCL -> Printer
>
> I was wondering if the PCL generated from PostScript was rather more
> complicated than that generated by the Windows driver and therefore required
> more processing.

Yes I also have the impression that it has something to do with the
translation from PostScript to PCL. The printer prints 10ppm from my
laptop with Windows2000, so it can't be a hardware problem. I think it has
to be a driver issue, some difference of printing systems between
FreeBSD/Windows.

> also take a look at (misleadingly-named) www.linuxprinting.org. They
> reccommend the use of the pxlmono driver, and say that it's much faster than
> others:
>
> http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-LaserJet_2100

I tried the "pxlmono" driver, recommended on the site instead of the
"lj5mono" or "lj5gray" I'm using now. But that driver didn't work at all.
Thanks for the tip though.

I'm thinking of looking for a Postscript emulator DIMM now, to make my
printer a PS printer.

Marco
-- 
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