OS X, HP LaserJet 5 printer driver not installed
Hello,
I just started using Mac OS X today. Have 2 computers with 10.5 Leopard and 1 with 10.2 Jaguar. I think all 3 computers are Power Mac G5's.
I have an HP LaserJet 5 printer. I'm not very familiar with parallel printer ports and cables. And it seems G5's don't have parallel printer ports so I couldn't connect using the parallel printer cable that came with the printer. The G5 has an rj-45, firewire, and usb ports. So, I used a cable to convert the parallel port into a USB port. The cable I used is an ATEN UC-1284B Printer Cable. It's properties are:
- Product ID : 8198 ($2006) |
- Vendor : ATEN UC-1284B |
- Device Speed : Full |
- Power (mA) : 500
Leopard can print to the printer through the USB port and cable. From what I could get from OS X the printer properties are:
- HP LaserJet 5
- Gutenprint V5.1.3
- PPD File Version 5.1.3
Jaguar can't print to the LaserJet 5. In Jaguar I looked at the Printer control center or whatever the printer control center in OS X is called and it sees the LaserJet 5. But, it has a question mark on the name and says "Driver not installed".
Well, after googling I think I found that Jaguar supports the LaserJet 5 out of the box. So, I'm stumped. If it's suppose to support the printer natively why doesn't it just work? Please help. Thanks!
I just started using Mac OS X today. Have 2 computers with 10.5 Leopard and 1 with 10.2 Jaguar. I think all 3 computers are Power Mac G5's.
I have an HP LaserJet 5 printer. I'm not very familiar with parallel printer ports and cables. And it seems G5's don't have parallel printer ports so I couldn't connect using the parallel printer cable that came with the printer. The G5 has an rj-45, firewire, and usb ports. So, I used a cable to convert the parallel port into a USB port. The cable I used is an ATEN UC-1284B Printer Cable. It's properties are:
- Product ID : 8198 ($2006) |
- Vendor : ATEN UC-1284B |
- Device Speed : Full |
- Power (mA) : 500
Leopard can print to the printer through the USB port and cable. From what I could get from OS X the printer properties are:
- HP LaserJet 5
- Gutenprint V5.1.3
- PPD File Version 5.1.3
Jaguar can't print to the LaserJet 5. In Jaguar I looked at the Printer control center or whatever the printer control center in OS X is called and it sees the LaserJet 5. But, it has a question mark on the name and says "Driver not installed".
Well, after googling I think I found that Jaguar supports the LaserJet 5 out of the box. So, I'm stumped. If it's suppose to support the printer natively why doesn't it just work? Please help. Thanks!
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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You should not need to download any driver as the LJ5 supports PostScript, and so the driver should be included with any version of OSX. If necessary, try installing it as a Generic PostScript printer. Select it from the list when adding the printer.
It's possible the the USB cable is the culprit. Does it require any kind of driver to be installed? Another way to install it is to use a printserver; that will also let you print directly to the printer, from any mac. And, if the LJ5 has a network port, you don't even need a printserver, just print to its IP address.
It's possible the the USB cable is the culprit. Does it require any kind of driver to be installed? Another way to install it is to use a printserver; that will also let you print directly to the printer, from any mac. And, if the LJ5 has a network port, you don't even need a printserver, just print to its IP address.
ASKER
Thanks. Went to http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php and installed both "usbtb - Mac OS X ONLY usb" and "gutenprint-5.0" and it's printing.
http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Lookup?h_lang=en&h_cc=us&cc=us&h_page=hpcom&lang=en&h_client=S-A-R163-1&h_pagetype=s-002&h_query=laserjet+5&submit.x=8&submit.y=4
There are several version of the printer/installable options so you'll have to narrow it down. Also, printing through the machine running Leopard is fine but will slow down its performance when doing so. You should be able to just connect the printer to a network hub with 1000baseT, turn on appletalk in the printer itself and then connect the computers to the same network. The HP software will allow you to assign the printer a static IP. Once you've done this, you'll want to turn off printer sharing in the System Preferences of each Mac under Network settings.