I'm a new user in way over my head (although I did a computer science undergrad, it was in the mid 80s and I left the field - things have changed).
Problem:
Trying to get an old sturdy Samsung ML-1450 printer working as other than Generic Text Printer in Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS. I've seen a user report that it worked in an earlier version of Ubuntu with the generic driver hpijs-pcl5e. The current state of affairs is that in trying to install this printer using the add printer dialog in settings, I get the message that the "Printer requires the hpijs program but it is not installed on this computer. Please install before using this printer".
I think I'd like to try this driver at least, as there is one positive report out there, but the install doesn't seem to be working. I am open to other drivers from reputable sources that would work.
Supporting Info:
In poking around on other pages, I learned to try the command lpinfo (lpinfo -m | grep ML-1450) and found there are indeed ML-1450 named drivers:
foomatic-db-compressed-ppds:0/ppd/foomatic-ppd/Samsung-ML-1450-hpijs-pcl5e.ppd Samsung ML-1450 Foomatic/hpijs-pcl5e
among a couple of other entries.
Is the installer missing the necessary files because they are compressed somewhere?
Other important details:
The printer is connected to the local ethernet by a TP-Link PS110P parallel port print server; a box with a parallel port at one end and an ethernet port at the other. This works to print to this printer from a windows 10 box, so the network seems fine.
The print server is automatically recognized in the printers tab in settings, almost whether I like it or not, as 1P_PrintServ99B013; the TP-link box itself has a web page interface and connecting there shows it realizes the connected printer is an ML-1450; this information also shows up in the printer tab for this printer in the Ubuntu settings, presumably reported by the TP-link rather than the ancient ML-1450 itself.
So it looks like the network part of it is ok; the linux machine can find the web page of the print server box on the network. If I put generic text drivers on, I can lpr a text file created in vi. So it's just about getting the PCL driver part working, I think.
