mac intel drivers on linux?

[brokndodge]

okidata has just released mac intel drivers for my gdi okidata printer. i managed to get the installer extracted on my linux box by mounting the .dmg as a hfsplus filesystem. then just copied the files out.

now i was wondering if anyone might be able to help me get the drivers out of the installer they are bundled in. the drivers are for mac osx on the intel architecture. osx is a bsd, right? maybe my thinking is skewed here but it seems to me like it outta work. if i can just figure out how to get the drivers out.

[antidrugue]

What is your exact printer model ?

Did you check it out at http://www.linuxprinting.org ?

[brokndodge]

been there done that... it's an oki C5200n. this printer is one of the GDI variety. relies on computer side drivers to do most of the work and does not work with postscript type drivers.

right now i'm using an old windows box and a ghostscript redirect to send print jobs to it, but as windows 95 is hardly stable and i'm not about to shell out the money for xp. i'd really like to see this printer up on linux.

edit: been doing more research on oki's website. the oki c5200 series uses hiper-C emulation. postscript emulation is available on their newer printers and appears to be the direction oki is going to take in the future but i've personally already got $800 invested in the 5200.

if i can find any info on hiper-C i will try to put together a filter for cups. that would add about 30 oki printers to the list of working linux printers.

[trhendr]

been there done that... it's an oki C5200n. this printer is one of the GDI variety. relies on computer side drivers to do most of the work and does not work with postscript type drivers.

right now i'm using an old windows box and a ghostscript redirect to send print jobs to it, but as windows 95 is hardly stable and i'm not about to shell out the money for xp. i'd really like to see this printer up on linux.

edit: been doing more research on oki's website. the oki c5200 series uses hiper-C emulation. postscript emulation is available on their newer printers and appears to be the direction oki is going to take in the future but i've personally already got $800 invested in the 5200.

if i can find any info on hiper-C i will try to put together a filter for cups. that would add about 30 oki printers to the list of working linux printers.

You might find one of the authors of this paper to be useful. I know Okidata the company has refused to release information about Hiper-C. http://www.oki.com/en/otr/194/downloads/otr-194-R09.pdf

Also, there is a driver based on the Hiper-W protocol, you'd think there'd simply be different commands for the color added. A fellow named Marcin Dalecki apparently wrote a driver for Hiper-W that works in linux. A search on his name does yield some email addresses, so perhaps message(s) to him might yield some help.

Lastly several of the Hiper-C printers appear to be GDI printers. It might be that a simple explanation of the Hiper-C command structure could be enough to get the GDI printer drivers to work. I think if enough users wrote to Oki asking for linux support for Hiper-C, they might eventually listen and respond.

I wish the C5150N that I have was supported. Since it isn't, I tend to doubt I'll ever purchase another Okidata product. It's a shame because the product is fairly nice, but increasingly unfortunate due to their inattention paid to linux support.

-Tom-