The foo2qpdl is a printer driver designed specifically for the QPDL protocol in Linux operating system. It provides seamless printing capabilities and reliable performance for users who require high-quality prints.
Foo2qpdl is an open source printer driver for Linux operating system, which is intended to work with printers that use the QPDL wire protocol. Though such printers are often referred to as winprinters or GDI printers, they are raster printers that use a very efficient wire protocol. A wide range of wire protocols is used today, such as Postscript, PCL, Epson, ZjStream and others.
Functionality:
There are five major components of the foo2qpdl printer driver. These include the page image to protocol conversion engine of the driver, a shell script, which runs Ghostscript and foo2qpdl in a pipeline, a converter that converts an ICM color profile to a Postscript CRD, foomatic database entries that describe supported printers and qpdldecode - a tool for QPDL stream inspection. All of the heavy lifting is performed by Ghostscript which processes images for printing.
Installation:
To install the driver, one needs to download it by clicking the link or using the whole command line below. After that, one should unpack it by executing the command line "tar zxf foo2zjs.tar.gz" and compile it by using the "make" command. Then the driver, foomatic XML files, and other related files can be installed via the "su" command, followed by "make install" command or "sudo make install." If you are using CUPS, then restart the spooler with "make cups" command or "sudo make cups."
Additional Configuration:
Once you have installed the driver, you need to create printer entries for your spooler, at least one queue for monochrome, and another for color printing. It is advisable to create the queues first, then edit them and set the device options as desired. There are different commands for creating printer queues, depending on the operating system you use.
New Features:
Some of the new features introduced in this release include support for Samsung CLP-300, Samsung CLP-600, and Samsung CLX-3160 printers. The latest version only implements JBIG (type 0x13) compression, which is considered alpha quality.
Conclusion:
If you own Samsung CLP-300 or Samsung CLP-600 printer, foo2qpdl is an excellent open-source driver that you can use to print your files. With its range of features such as QPDL stream inspection, support for various wire protocols, and seamless functionality with Ghostscript, the driver is a must-have for all Linux users. Installation is easy, and configuration depends on the operating system being used.
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