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Frequently Asked Questions on UNIX Printing

On this page we present a selection of frequently asked questions with respect to UNIX/Linux printing in general and SQue or SICFilePlus in particular.

We invite you to consult the MVI Forum for UNIX Printing where you will also find a platform trying to answer questions on all aspects of UNIX printing to Canon devices.

Another resource for answers on Linux related printer items would be the Free Standards Group previously "linuxprinting.org", where you will also find a whealth of information on all aspects of Linux (and UNIX) printing.

1. On my Linux platform, after installing SQue and creating a printer queue, there is no output at all to the Canon device.
2. On my UNIX platform, after installing SQue and creating a printer queue, there is no output at all to the Canon device.
3. How can I restart the printer manager?
4. If I send a PCL page to a colour device, it still prints in black and white.
5. When to use a CPCA queue and when PCL or PS?
6. The Linux driver is free of charge, yet the setup asks for a license key!

On my Linux platform, after installing SQue and creating a printer queue, there is no output at all to the Canon device.

We strongly encourage to use CQue on Linux, unless you were to have explicit reasons to do otherwise.

On Linux platforms, it is recommended to create a printer queue with direct output to the device, either by a LPD or a TCP/IP 9100 port (this is not so for other UNIX platforms).
If no output is generated please check the following:

• Is the IP address correct? You might also do a "ping" with the same IP address to verify that the Canon device is on-line.
• If the ping is OK, are you sure the Canon device supports the printing language of the queue (PostScript or PCL)? A UFR II Canon device is currently not supported by SQue and will not print any output from a SQue queue.
• Is the printer manager running? To check, you might run:
  ps -ef | grep cupsd (for CUPS) or ps -ef | grep lpd (for LPRng)
  You would see a process for the printer manager running.
  If that is not the case restart the printer manager (see question 3.).
• Is the printer queue you created "enabled"? Especially CUPS tends to disable a printer queue as soon as some trouble appears, and it will not enable the queue automatically. To check, type lpstat -l -p nameOfPrinterQueue
  To enable the queue: /bin/enable nameOfPrinterQueue or /usr/sbin/cupsenable nameOfPrinterQueue (for more recent versions of CUPS).

On my UNIX platform, after installing SQue and creating a printer queue, there is no output at all to the Canon device.

On UNIX platforms, it is recommended to create a printer queue in two steps:

1. First create a raw printer queue with a LPD. Take as an example for a name: 'fooRaw'.
2. Then create a logical queue (let's call it 'foo'), with output to the previously created printer queue fooRaw.

If no output is generated please check the following:

• Is the IP address correct? You might also do a "ping" with the same IP address to verify that the Canon device is on-line.
• If the ping is OK, are you sure the Canon device supports the printing language of the queue (PostScript or PCL)? A UFR II Canon device is currently not supported by SQue and will not print any output from a SQue queue.
• Is the printer manager running? To check, you might run:
  ps -ef | grep lp or ps -ef | grep lpd (BSD UNIX), or also ps -ef | grep lpsched (SystemV UNIX)
  The command to use will depend on the type of UNIX you are using. You would see a process for the printer manager running.
  If that is not the case restart the printer manager (see question 3.).
• Is the printer queue you created "enabled"? Some printer managers tend to disable a printer queue as soon as some trouble appears, and it will not enable the queue automatically. To check, type lpstat -l -p nameOfPrinterQueue
  To enable the queue: /bin/enable nameOfPrinterQueue or /usr/bin/enable nameOfPrinterQueue
• Is the OUTPUTCOMMAND correct? You would have specified the "outputcommand" on the second menu of SQue. It would be something like:
  " | lp -d fooRaw". But if you had specified " | lp -d foo", then you would be in trouble: the printer queue "foo" is sending its output to the printer queue "foo", i.e. itself. This will generate a loop of empty print jobs sending output to itself. To stop such a loop you have to stop the printer manager and/or kill most or all jobs related to the print request.
  Even though this item is clearly explained in the SQue manual, it is a feature which quite often appears.

How can I restart the printer manager?

For Linux there are various possibilities of which you may use one:

• From the main menu go to "System administration" and then "Services". There you would see as one of the services "cups", or possibly "lpd" (if LPRng is the printer manager). Select it and restart it.
• From a terminal window, type: service cups restart.
• From a terminal window, type: /etc/init.d/cups restart, or sometimes: /etc/init.d/cupsys restart.
  If LPRng is the printer manager, type: /etc/init.d/lpd restart.

For UNIX it depends on the type of UNIX you are using:

• For SystemV types of UNIX (Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Silicon Graphics):
  From a terminal window, type: /etc/init.d/lp stop
  followed by: /etc/init.d/lp start.
• For BSD types of UNIX (LPRng, DEC/OSF1):
  From a terminal window, type: /etc/init.d/lpd stop
  followed by: /etc/init.d/lpd start.
• For AIX: You may use "smit" to interactively restart the printer manager.
  Or from a terminal window type: "stopsrc -s qdaemon" followed by "startsrc -s qdaemon" and/or "stopsrc -s lpd" followed by "startsrc -s lpd".
• For HP-UX you may use "sam" to interactively restart the printer manager. If the above method would not work, you may also from a terminal window, type: lpshut or /usr/sbin/lpshut, followed by: lpsched or /usr/lib/lpsched.
  If LPRng is the printer manager, type: /etc/init.d/lpd restart.
• For Sun Solaris you may use "printmanager" to interactively restart the printer manager. If the above method would not work, you may also from a terminal window, type: lpshut or /usr/sbin/lpshut, followed by: lpsched or /usr/lib/lpsched.

If I send a PCL document to a colour device, it still prints in black and white.

This is probably a feature of the Canon device. You may configure the colour mode of the Canon device to be: automatic or grayscale.
If it is automatic, it will automatically switch to either colour or grey mode, depending on the contents of the document. This holds both for PostScript and PCL.
If the device is set to grayscale mode, the SQue driver has no means to force it to colour mode if only PCL is used. The CPCA driver does have this possibility and for some devices the PS driver too.

When to use a CPCA queue and when PCL or PS?

If you are sure that all documents are pure PCL (or text) you would use a PCL queue.
And of course if all documents are pure PostScript, you would use a PS queue.
The following list may help you decide which type of queue to use:

A CPCA queue:

• A CPCA queue will accept both text, PCL, PS and PDF documents.
• It will transform PDF data to PS only if ghostscript is available. Otherwise it will send the data "as is".
  It will never transform PostScript data to PCL or the reverse.
• It will be able to force colour mode, even if the device is in grayscale mode by default.
• It will handle department accounting in a more strict way: when setting up accounting it queries the Canon device to check whether a user id does exist on the device.
• If input of various types needs to be processed, i.e. text, PCL, PS and/or PDF, the printer finishing parameters will be applied to all types of input.

A PostScript queue:

• A PostScript queue will accept both text, PS and PDF documents.
• It will transform PDF data to PS only if ghostscript is available. Otherwise it will send the data "as is".
• It will transform text data to PS (possibly modified through command line options).
• It will be able to force colour mode, even if the device is in grayscale mode by default, if that feature is supported by the PPD file.
• For a PostScript queue to work the Canon device should, of course, have a PS board.

A PCL queue:

• A PCL queue will accept both text, PCL, PS and PDF documents.
• It will transform PS and PDF data to PCL only if ghostscript is available. Otherwise it will send the data "as is".
• It will not be able to force colour mode, if the device is in grayscale mode by default.
• For a PCL queue to work the Canon device should, of course, have a PCL board.

The Linux driver is free of charge, yet the setup asks for a license key!

The Linux driver is free of charge! However, the SQue Text Mode driver is not free of charge. We suppose that 99% of Linux users will use the X11/Motif version of SQue.

Thus if your setup program asks for a license key, please verify that you downloaded the correct version of SQue. On the Canon download site both versions of SQue for Linux (X11/Motif [or graphical interface] and Text Mode [for alphanumerical terminals]) are available.