Slow Printing on Linux? 87
sciguy125 asks: "I switched to Linux a few months ago and the biggest problem that I've had is with my printer. I've got a Canon S520 and Red Hat 9. It prints painfully slow. If I want to print word documents that are more than 5 pages, it's faster to reboot into Windows and print from there. I've scoured the Internet and found that many people are having this problem, but nobody has a satisfactory solution. The most common suggestion is to get a faster computer, thinking that GhostScript is running slow. I'm fairly sure that isn't my problem because the processor is only at about half load when printing. I'm not exactly sure how wide spread this problem is, but I do know that there is at least a decent sized handful of people struggling with it. At first, I was considering dropping Linux because this printing problem is a serious issue with me, but now I just leave a good chunk of my printing until after 2am." Has anyone run into the problem before? What could make a print job spool at unusually slow rates to the printer?
Bandwidth perhaps? (Score:5, Informative)
Performance options (Score:5, Informative)
Try this (Score:4, Informative)
Possible USB issue? (Score:5, Informative)
I ran into this some time back... exactly as you describe - painfully slow printing with little CPU impact.
After some searching I found a hint that it might be related to my USB driver.
Try switching from uhci to usb-uhci (or vise-versa) and see if that makes a difference.
If they're built into your kernel, you'll have to configure them as modules both and rebuild it.
My disposable toy-printer (Lexmark Z35) now works great _and_fast_ in Linux.
slightly unrelated (Score:4, Informative)
People don't realize that most consumer based printers in OS X go through a crazy amount of processing.
For example, If I'm printing a document from MS word, that gets converted into a PDF, then to PS, then to the native printers language, and finally out!
Crazy!
Now when you convert that to the windows, or OS 9 world,
PS straight to the native printers language, to the USB port.
Thats quick!
If you want a real test in linux to see if its spooling, or the pipe to the printer, "stop" the print queue, the job will spool, and then restart the queue.
When the queue starts, the files already spooled, and it just needs to be sent!
good luck
Printer install walkthrough, screen by screen (Score:5, Informative)
Works just as well for networked printers and printers attached to MS-Windows boxes (might need a username/password for an MS-Window box set up to require that), other CUPS printers are 100% automatic unless you tell CUPS not to.
Re:My USB modules (Score:3, Informative)
The guy who posed the question said he's running RedHat 9, which is a 2.4 kernel based disto... not Mandrake running a 2.6 kernel.
If you're having the same issue, maybe it's because you're using 3 drivers at the same time.
If you have both USB-1.x and USB-2.0 ports on your box I can understand running ehci_hcd for the 2.0 card, but you only need one driver for the other interface.
Frankly, I'm surprized it even loaded both 1.x drivers at the same time.
Re:ghostscript is slow (Score:3, Informative)