Solaris

How easy it is to set up a Canon plotter (36" paper) on Solaris 10?

The one I'm looking at purchasing (ImagePROGRAF iPF755 MFP) uses HP-GL/2. The newer one looks like it dropped HP-GL/2 support and has a Canon proprietary language called GARO. I'm guessing that will make setup in Solaris not as easy?

I hate doing this, but I'm replying to my own thread to bump it up.

I gotta believe that someone, somewhere is using Canon plotters to print to from Solaris. But maybe I'm wrong.

If not here, where else might I find such a person? This is starting to be like looking for a needle in a haystack....

The likelihood of finding a user who owns the exact same specialty product of interest, and uses the exact same specialty operating system, and is relevantly knowledgeable in your question, and is looking when you ask the question, is related to the Drake Equation. You're probably not the only Solaris Canon plotter user, but proving this may be difficult.

You obviously know wa more than average on the subject already if you understand there's standard languages a printers can communicate in. We're not ignoring your question, our experience isn't specialized enough to answer. I'll give you the best guesses I can.

Dropping support for a portable printing language in support of a new and proprietary one would be an atrociously bad sign. I would not buy a hyperexpensive specialty product until I could prove it worked.

Perhaps Canon would have something to say on the matter. Maybe they will offer HP-GL/2 as an option, understand how to configure it, or suggest an alternative product which still has it.

Ya, I looked into this as well and there's an obvious lack of driver support from Canon for this OS. Considering that, I doubt you want to implement a printer that doesn't support standard languages. Without knowing anything about your application or environment, I hate to say that there's a better way. But, I have to think, there's a better way than trying to crowbar this onto Solaris.

Thanks for the feedback.

Currently we are using a Xerox 8825. It is nearing the end of its life, so I'm just looking for a good replacement. We run an older CAD program on a Sun box. A previous IT manager set it up in Solaris, and I don't know if he just used the standard OS "Add Printer" method through the GUI or what. (I have a hunch not.... he hated GUIs and always used the command line.)

As far as large format devices go, Oracle's HCL for Solaris doesn't look very promising, but I'm not sure it's the "final word" on what will or won't work.

I certainly don't plan on buying anything before I can be shown it is already being used in a working environment.

Oce is another plotter brand that a rep is trying to sell us. He says he has several Unix clients using it. I need to talk to them and find out which Unix they are using. Oce was bought by Canon, but the hardware is still Oce's, so I don't think they would automatically be ruled out just because of the Canon name being tied to them.

If I find out anything useful, I'll post the info.

I think you're on the right track. There is another option. Get a support contract on your existing hardware. Or, locate remanufactured printer that can become a drop in replacement. If it's the same model number, etc.. you maybe able to export the config and import to the replacement device. Then you don't have to deal with the printer setup at all from the OS side of things.

Out of curiosity, what's the CAD program name? You might be able to check with the manufacturer and see what they recommend.

We use CimCAD. I had sent an email earlier but had no response, so I tried contacting them again today, and was told that as long as the device recognizes HP-GL2, it would work. No need to set up special drivers or anything - just use the admin tool to create a new printer (or even use HP's JetAdmin script), give the plotter an IP address and a hostname for the print spooler to print to, and it should work.

I hope it's that easy!

Thanks again.