[cups.general] Printing VERY slow

[James Cammarata]

Hi all, we're using cups here at my company to print to remote Jet
Directs.  The server is at our central office here, obviously the
JetDirects and printers are at each remote location.  These remote
locations are serviced by WAN links ranging from 128Kbps to 512Kbps.

The problem is this: printing is like molasses.  Before we moved to our
new server (Mandrake 10 running on an IBM x345) we were running this
application on a Sun 450, and there were no problems with printing. 
Cups was not used on the 450.  

The application redirects it's output to a script using STDOUT, and the
scripts call either lp or a2ps to do the formating/printing.

All methods of doing the printing are slow, and it doesn't matter
whether I use the socket, lp, or IPP protocols to communicate with the
JetDirect, all are slow: about 1 page per minute.

Our printers include old HP 6P's, 13xx's, 22xx's, 23xx's, 4200's, etc. 
Essentially 85% HP laserjets.

I have tried using both the CUPS default laserjet driver and hpijs.

This problem does not affect our line printers using the RAW driver.

Any suggestions?  Let me know if you need more info.


James Cammarata

Developer @ Alter Trading
Desk: (314) 872-2426
Cell: (314) 409-0583
________________________________________________________
Out the Ethernet, through the router,
down the fiber, off another router,
down the T1, past the fire-wall
...nothing but Net