$Id: README.me,v 1.16 1999/05/15 14:50:40 henryk Exp $




                     LEXMARK 7000 PRINTER DRIVER FOR LINUX
                        (AND OTHER OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS)


                            (C) 1999 Henryk Paluch
                           paluch@bimbo.fjfi.cvut.cz
                                 May 16, 1999
                            PROGRAM RELEASE: 990516


Hi folks!

     This  is  my  seventh  release of Lexmark 7000 driver for Linux.  The most
important change is experimental UNTESTED!  color  support  for  Lexmark  5700,
5770.  Messages  were  cleaned up.  Also pbm2l7k should cleanly exit in case of
memory allocation error. Also see CHANGES.


     MANY PARTS OF THE DRIVER WERE REWRITTEN TO ACHIEVE  COLOR  SUPPORT.   THIS
VERSION  MAY CONTAIN NEW BUGS (EVEN FOR BLACK PRINTING).  USE ON YOUR OWN RISK!


Lexmark does NOT provide protocol specification for third party. They  consider
it  "copyrighted".  So, this work is completely based on disassembling printing
files (using driver for Windows and Print to File capability in  programs).  It
does  mean,  that  this  program comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY! Use it on your own
risk only!


     This release is not "Plug & Play". Read the instructions carefully.


1.  CURRENT FEATURES


 o Black/White printing 600x600 dpi (if you need 600x300d dpi, use older 990207
   revision, please)
 o Preliminary  600x600  dpi  colour  printing in CMY and CMYK mode - tested on
   Lexmark 7000. BE SURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST 120MB OF FREE VIRTUAL  MEMORY,  WHEN
   PRINTING IN COLOR!
 o RedHat 5.x RPM's for easier installation
 o Debian dpkg configs - *.deb will follow soon (I hope)
 o work as filter PBM -> printer, e. g. easy integration with Ghost-Script
 o available under GNU GPL license including source code
 o support for Lexmark 5700 (only Black & White printing tested)
 o from  990321  relase  should  not crash, when printing large amount of black
   pixels :-)
 o reduced memory footprint when printing in color (however it does not  reduce
   ghostscript memory requirements)




2.  SUPPORTED PRINTERS

     The  table  below shows experience of Lexmark users with that driver.  Pay
attention to column 'WORKS'.


Model          Works   Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Lexmark 7200   YES     reported by Dan Davis
Lexmark 7000   YES     reported by Nigel Lock and myself :-)
Lexmark 5770   YES     reported by Paul Gratz
Lexmark 5700   YES     reported by Brian Wainscott and others.
Lexmark 5000   YES     works in Lexmark 7000 mode
Lexmark 3200   NO      reported by Chris Davis
Lexmark 2050   NO      (got sample output from Brant Nesbitt)
Lexmark 1100   NO      reported by Ben Adler. The protocol seems
                       to be very different. I'll need tons of
                       luck to have success



3.  FILES


File                  Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHANGES               changes between releases
Makefile              project Makefile
README                this file
dbman                 manage Lexmark entries in RedHat printerdb (printtool)
debian/*              files needed to make Debian dpkg
lexmarkprotocol.txt   description of "top secret" protocol
lexmark????-filter    magic filter files
lexmark*.spec         RedHat's RPM spec file to build *.rpm
pbm2l7k.c             the Lexmark 7000 driver (works as filter)
pbm2lex5700           prints Black & White PBM-raw on Lexmark 5700
pnm2lex5700           prints (?) RGB PNM-raw in color on Lexmark 5700
pnm2lex7000           prints RGB PNM-raw in color on Lexmark 7000
pr5700.prn            initialization (prologue) for Lexmark 5700 (obsolete)
pr7000.prn            initialization (prologue) for Lexmark 7000 (obsolete)
ps-to-printer.fpi     automatic printing for RedHat 5.x (obsolete)
pscprint              prints postscript in color
psprint               prints postscript file to /dev/lp1
stairs.pbm            test bitmap for all 192 ink jets
stairsb.prn           Black & White stairs for Lexmark 7000
stairsc.prn           Colour stairs for Lexmark 7000



4.  INSTALLATION


4.1.  Installing rpm version on RedHat


     You should have 'printtool' and 'rhs-printfilters' installed on  you  Red-
Hat.  This package was compiled on RedHat 5.2 or 6.0. If you use old RedHat 4.2
you need to recompile  rpm  package  from  source  using  'rpm  --rebuild  lex-
mark7000linux-990516-1.src.rpm'.


     Install binary rpm package:


    # rpm -Uvh lexmark7000linux-990516-1.i386.rpm



     Start 'printtool':


    # /usr/bin/printtool


If  printtool screams something about missing stat in shared libraries, upgrade
your Tcl/Tk or try this trick:


    # /usr/bin/wishx < /usr/bin/printtool



     Add printer using 'Add' and  click  on  'Select'  filter.   Select  proper
printer  and  carefully follow instructions shown in a right top window, other-
wise you fail to configure the printer properly.


     If you don't see your printer in a list, try to recreate  Lexmark  entries
in /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/printerdb using:

    # dbman -i




     Try print test page.


4.2.  Notes about color printing


     Color  printing  is  VERY  resource intensive. Even my Celeron 300MHz with
64MB RAM is a bit slow to do the work without pauses in printing :-( Some  ver-
sion  of  GhostScript refuses makeing of large bitmaps, thus some pictures will
print in Black & White instead of color (observed on Netscape's PostScript out-
put).  The  workaround  is  to add -dMaxBitamp=102000000 to GhostScript command
line.


     REMEMBER THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST 120 MB OF FREE  VIRTUAL  MEMORY  TO
PRINT IN COLOR SUCCESFULLY!!!


4.2.1.  How color printing works


     ghostscript is used to generate PNM-raw RGB image. This image is converted
using my 'pnmraw2cmyk' program. pnmraw2cmyk convert RGB  PNM-raw  to  monochro-
matic  PBM-raw  image. To speedup printing and reduce memory usage, pnmraw2cmyk
should be invoked with '-i' argument to generate interlaced PBM-raw  image  (it
does  mean  that there are Cyan Magenat Yellow and optionally Black interlaced,
thus pbm2l7k may print them immediately).


     Note that printers use CMY(K) (Cyan Magenta  Yellow,  Black)  color  space
rather than RGB (Red Green Blue). Also pnmraw2cmyk converts 256-color levels to
2-levels of CMYK (e.g. dithering).


     pbm2l7k converts monochrome Black & White image or Interlaced  CMYK  image
to  Lexmark  printing  codes. Color interlaced bitmaps are autodetected seeking
for signature in comment lines of PBM-raw image, e.g., '-c'  option  no  longer
works.


4.3.  Installing deb version on Debian


     This  section needs to be written. The driver contains Debian configs con-
tributed by Anthony Fok, however I don't have Debian installed.   Binary  *.deb
packages should be available on http://packages.debian.org


4.4.  Installing on other Linux/Unix systems


 (1)   Build the project from source

           $ make



 (2)   It should compile all required binaries.



 (3)   Edit 'prefix' in Makefile to suit your needs.


 (4)   Install compiled binaries:


           # make install



 (5)   Add  printer  entry to /etc/printcap. It depends on your OS/distribution
       how to do it.


       Sample entry could be created as follows (this stuff is untested!):

           #
           # /etc/printcap
           #
           lp:\
                   :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
                   :mx#0:\
                   :sh:\
                   :lp=/dev/lp0:\
                   :if=/var/spool/lpd/lp/filter:



     Where:

    sd  spool directory
        (need to be created using mkdir /var/spool/lpd/lp).
    sh  suppress header (banner)
    lp  printer port device
    if  input filter - script that transfer input file to printer
        escapes



     /var/spool/lpd/lp/filter would look like:

    #!/bin/sh
    # Prints PostScript in Black & White on Lexmark 7000
    gs -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pbmraw -sOutputFile=- -r600 \
     - | /usr/bin/pbm2l7k



     Now you can print PostScript using command:

    # lpr colorcir.ps




     Look in scripts 'psprint' and 'pscprint' to see how to print PostScript in
Black & White and Colour.


5.  NOTES


    As  I stated above, this driver is *pre-pre-pre-pre ALPHA* version. Use
    it on your own risk. I'll gladly appreciate bug reports and  bug  fixes
    concerning  this driver. I also hope, that Lexmark will change his "OSS
    deny" policy soon.



     The most recent version of this driver should be available on:

    http://bimbo.fjfi.cvut.cz/~paluch/l7kdriver/
    ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/hardware/drivers/lexmark7000*.tar.gz



     I hope you will enjoy this "underground" release of Lexmark  7000  printer
driver

             Henryk Paluch, paluch@bimbo.fjfi.cvut.cz


6.  THANKS


     I'd like to thanks to many people for feedback and help to make the driver
to work on additional Lexmark models. The list comes in chronological & chaotic
order:

Dithering  routines  were ripped from print-util.c - part of GIMP package. That
file was written by Michael Sweet (mike@easysw.com)

Special thanks to Peter Samuel for RedHat printtool config and solving  "color"
problems with ghostscript.

Special  thanks  to  Anthony  Fok that contributed Debian dpkg configs and lex-
mark{5700,7000}-filter magic filters.

7200 series:

Dan Davis - thanks for report, and notice about docs

7000 series:

Nigel Lock - thanks for report, and notice about unclear point in  installation
docs.

5700 series:

Stephen  Vinall,  Peter Mott, Brian Wainscott, Javier Munoz, Phil Humpherys for
feedback and help.


1100 series:

Ben Adler - thanks for reports and nice test patterns.


I apologize if someone is missing. I have little chaos in my mailbox ;-)