Slow printing on RHL 9

[Tim Wunder]

On 8/29/2003 4:39 PM, someone claiming to be Tim Wunder wrote:

> On 8/29/2003 4:26 PM, someone claiming to be Net Llama! wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Tim Wunder wrote:
>>
>>> I'm conducting an experiment with a willing subject at work. I've
>>> installed RHL 9 and he's using it in his day to day activity. One of his
>>> activities involves logging onto an online 3PL site (Third Party
>>> Logistics) and printing a 2 page bar coded shipping document.
>>> RHL 9 is configured to use CUPS and the printer is a networked JetDirect
>>> printer (HP 2200).
>>> When he prints the document, it takes nearly 5 minutes for both pages to
>>> finally finish printing. Contrast this to the less than 1 minute it
>>> takes for the document to print via Windows.
>>> Now, if he logs into a remote X session on our RHL 7 server and prints
>>> from there, it prints fast, just like it does from Windows.
>>> Both the RHL 7 server and the RHL 9 desktop are running CUPS.
>>> The desktop machine is an AMD K6-2 500 MHz with 256MB RAM, the server is
>>> a 1GHz Intel.
>>> Any ideas on what I can try to speed up the printing?
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm using RH9 on my desktop at work, and printing is always quite snappy
>> to the JetDirect printers here.
>> I dont' suppose that barcode doc is available for me to try?
>>
> 
> Unfortunately, no.
> 
>> I'd be curious on what is taking so long.  Is it his box that is taking
>> forever to generate the postscript?
> 
> 
> That's what I'm thinking. The last page contains the bar code, and that 
> takes forever. The first page comes out fairly quickly.
> 
>> ...  Or to send the file over the network
>> to the printer, or for the printer to process & print it?
>>
> 
> Well, the server and the Windows boxen all deal with the same network 
> and printer and don't have the problem.
> 
>> Also, have you tried printing to a PS file, and then using lpr to send it
>> to the printer?
>>
> 
> No, but that's a good idea. I'll try that, but it's close to end of day 
> here (and month end...), so I'll probly not get to it 'til Tuesday.
> 


OK... got back to this. Printing to a file goes quickly, using lpr to 
print it to the printer from the local desktop machine, takes a LONG time.

The file is, um, large:
$ ll *.ps
-rw-r--r-- 1 tpw  adm   27365874 Sep  2 16:05 2003245149827.ps


For grins, I scp'd the .ps file to my Samba shared Home directory, 
opened it with Windows' GhostScript and printed it to the same printer. 
It went very quickly. :-(

The server creates a similar large file, although the example I have is 
somewhat smaller:
# ll *.ps
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ddt  ddt   20719300 Sep  2 16:25 2003245149879.ps

So, I guess what I've determined is that the problem is with the RHL9 
PC. I don''t know if it's CUPS, the driver, ghostscript, or what. Any 
more ideas?

Thanks,
Tim