****** Lexmark 2070 Color Jetprinter Linux Driver ******
Linux_Printing_Howto here you might find the right driver for your printer - if
it is not a Lexmark 2070. Right now there does not seem to exist a 100%
compatible printer.
***** Download *****
c2070_source_and_documentation
***** Introduction *****
The Lexmark 2070 is a fine printer: two seperate cartridges, up to 600dpi, full
color printing capabilities and cheap. At least it was cheap, as you cannot buy
it any longer. But if you already have one and want to use it with Linux, here
the right driver can be found.
Unfortunately, Lexmark decided to design the 2070 as a Windows GDI printer. The
protocol is proprietary, so there is not any documentation available.
Fortunately, as it is a very simple protocol, it has not been an unsolvable
problem to reverse engineer it by printing to a file using the Windows driver.
The protocol uses a short initialization sequence to set up the printer and
load a page. After that, bit patterns with their own header are sent to the
printer, usually followed by a sequence to transport the paper to the next
vertical position. The bit patterns have one bit for each pen in the cartridge.
The bits are in the order of the pens in one column of the sweep; the uppermost
pen first, then down to the last pen, after that the next column. Certain bytes
in the header set the horizontal start position and the number of columns to
print. A checksum, the complete number of bytes for one sweep including the
header, has to be present in the header to make the printer accept the data.
Color printing is nonetheless a difficult issue. As there are three colors in
the color cartridge, there is only a third of the pens available for each
color. There is also a gap inbetween two colors. Yet all three colors are
printed in one sweep, so there have to be some arithmetics. The black cartridge
appears to be misadjusted to the colors, so it can only be used partially. So
there is one black sweep after two color sweeps.
Optimization of white spaces is also handled by this driver by reducing the
sweeps to their minimum width and transporting vertically over completely empty
lines in just one sequence.
The driver filters GhostScript output to the Lexmark protocol. The input format
has changed to bitcmyk, which means you have to change your apsfilter
accordingly. The driver simply reads the standard input, converts it and then
sends the data to the standard output. This has been successfully tested with
GhostScript 5.10, which is included in SuSE 6.2. Right now, you should not use
this driver for printing just black and white pages, as this is done much
faster by
the_older_Lexmark2070_B/W_driver.
***** Installation *****
After you have downloaded the tarball with the sourcecode, you have to extract
its contents into a directory of your choice by typing
tar -xzf c2070-0.99.tar.gz
Then you have to compile the code to get the binary for your system. This is
done simply by typing
make
If you are root (you should be root while installing new software in most cases
anyway) you can now copy the binary to its destination, which is /usr/bin/c2070
by typing
make install
You should now modify your apsfilter, as this driver is designed to work with
the BSD printing system. There might exist other possibilities, but please do
not ask me about them. A good basic apsfilter can be found in SuSE Linux 6.2,
but I guess that other distibutors use quite similar files. You can download my
readily modified apsfilter for SuSE 6.2 (and probably other distibutions) here.
You can also modify it yourself.
Warning! Before you change the apsfilter, backup the original file!
You have to modify two sections of the apsfilter in order to make the new
driver work with it. These sections might differ slightly in your filter! All
modifications are in bold letters. Your apsfilter is linked to several places,
probably at least to "/usr/lib/apsfilter/bin/apsfilter".
...
...
...
case $PRINTER in
	PS_*dpi)
	    r="${PRINTER#PS_}" ; r="${r%dpi}" ; setres $r
	    [ `echo $r|grep -cE '^([0-9]+|[0-9]+x[0-9]+)$'` -eq 0 ] && setres 300
	    [ -n "$DPI" ] && setres $DPI
	    ;;
	PS_*)			setres 300        ;;
	cdj*|*desk*|djet*)	setres 300 -r     ;;
	dnj*c)			setres 300 -r     ;;
	hpdj)			setres 300 -r     ;;
	ljet4l)			setres 300        ;;
	ljet4)			setres 600        ;;
	lj4dith)		setres 600        ;;
	laserjet|ljet[23]*)	setres 300        ;;
	paintjet|pj*)		setres 300        ;;
	necp6)			setres 360        ;;
	bj10e|bj200|bjc[68]00)	setres 360 -r     ;;
	stcolor|st800)		setres 360 -r     ;;
	eps9*)			setres 240x216 -r ;;
	epson)			setres 360x180 -r ;;
	epsonc)			setres 360x180 -r ;;
	*\.upp)			setres 300 -r     ;;
	ppa1000|ppa[87]20)	setres 600 -r     ;;
	c2070)                  setres 300 -r     ;;
	*)			setres 300 -r     ;;
esac
...
...
...
case $PRINTER in
	*\.upp)	# PRINTER = option file (e.g. unified printer driver)
		# Note: A resolution in the option file overwrites
		#       the given resolution. This is a `must be'.
		HAVE_GS="$HAVE_GS ${GS_RESOL} @${PRINTER}"
		;;
	ppa1000|ppa[87]20)
		# PRINTER = pbmraw gs device + post filter pbm2ppa
		#
		HAVE_GS="$HAVE_GS -sDEVICE=pbmraw ${GS_RESOL}"
		#
		findfilter pbm2ppa PBMTOPPA
		OUTPIPE="$HAVE_PBMTOPPA -v ${PRINTER#ppa}|$PRINT_RAW"
		#
		;;
	lex*)	# PRINTER = pbmraw gs device + post filter pbm2l7k
		#
		HAVE_GS="$HAVE_GS -sDEVICE=pbmraw ${GS_RESOL}"
		#
		findfilter pbm2l7k PBMTOLEX
		case $PRINTER in
			*7000)	OUTPIPE="$HAVE_PBMTOLEX -m 0 |$PRINT_RAW" ;;
			*5700)	OUTPIPE="$HAVE_PBMTOLEX -m 1 |$PRINT_RAW" ;;
			*)	OUTPIPE="$HAVE_PBMTOLEX      |$PRINT_RAW" ;;
		esac
		;;
	c2070)
		# PRINTER = bitcmyk gs device + post filter c2070
		HAVE_GS="$HAVE_GS -dDITHERPPI=150 -sDEVICE=bitcmyk ${GS_RESOL}"
		#
		findfilter c2070 CMYKTO2070
		OUTPIPE="$HAVE_CMYKTO2070|$PRINT_RAW"
		;;
	*)	# PRINTER = ghostscript device
         	HAVE_GS="$HAVE_GS -sDEVICE=${PRINTER} ${GS_RESOL}"
	        ;;
esac
...
...
...
It is probably a good idea to copy the modifications directly from this
document to your apsfilter. You should test the apsfilter by simply executing
it and looking for any error messages. You should get some error messages when
trying this anyway, but a syntax error indicates that is is your fault. You can
monitor the correct execution later by watching the list of active processes
after launching a print job.
The -dDITHERPPI parameter of GhostScript controls the graininess of the output.
If you want your own Andy Warhol graphic, you might want to set this to 10 ;-).
The GhostScript standard setting is 60, which looks really grainy. You should
experiment with this parameter to find the best setting.
Finally, you have to create your printer's queues. This can be done more or
less easily using /usr/lib/apsfilter/bin/SETUP. You should configure a
"c2070 a4 color 300" at (in most cases) "/dev/lp0".
Now it should be done. Try to print now, curse and try again ;-).
***** Copyright and License *****
This driver and documentation have been written by Christian Kornblum in
October, 1999. It is protected by the GNU Public License, which you should have
received a copy of along with this package.
===============================================================================
You are welcome to contact me if you have any questions or ideas!
kornblum@studst.fh-muenster.de