Printer paranoia!

[Lavene]

(This is crossposted on http://forums.debian.net/ Sorry about that but I'm getting desperate!)

After more than two years of fighting back I finally had to give in and get a printer. After consulting LinuxPrinting.org (http://www.linuxprinting.org/) (and my bank account) I decided for an Epson C48. And of course it's really giving me a hard time making it work. I'm first interested in making it work locally under KDE, and later hook it up to my server and share it over my network. But that's for later....

Anyway, this is where I'm at:

I've installed cupsys, cupsys-client, gutenprint drivers, loads of foomatic stuff that came as dependencies and other bit's and pieces that also trickled in as dependencies.

I can use the Cups web interface (localhost:631) and configure the printer with the correct type and driver. Everything looks peachy but it will not print. Not even cups' own testpage.

I can see my printer as /dev/usb/lp0

It's also seemingly correct configured in KDE. It's shows up in Kcontrol, places the jobs in the que with the user as owner pause for a while and then the job disapear like it has been printed.

So I'm starting to run out of ideas so some fresh input would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks
Tina :)

[tom_servo]

I have only some generic, but hopefully still helpful advice. First, have you checked the cups logs (usually accessible through the web interface you mentioned)? And secondly, have you checked that the user cups is running as has access to the /dev/usb/lp0 (might not hurt to just "chmod 777 /dev/usb/lp0" since the permissions will be reset by udev during the next boot anyway)?

Finally have you tried to send data to the printer directly? Maybe send a couple of pages of text like this "cat some_text.txt > /dev/usb/lp0" and see if it prints. Some new printers cannot handle plain text that way, and instead depend on the computer to rasterize it, and send that. If that is the case for this printer you might get random garbage or nothing at all with this test. But if you do get the text out at least you know the printer is ok, and the kernel modules are loaded, and such, and that the problem must be cups (since it is getting to cups, and apparently could get from cups to the printer).

I hope that helps in some way.

Alain

[Lavene]

Thanks! I've tried to send something directly to the printer and that doesen't work. I'll check the permissions.

But! It works under Ubuntu! Just like that! I fired up ubuntu, started cups and printed away. It found the printer and driver... everything! So it should be possible to get to work under Debian Etch too I would think. Guess I'll have to keep digging...

Tina

PS: Why did I get moved from 'Debian' to 'too hot to handle'?? This is a pure Debian problem...

[krp]

I had the same type of problem with my Cannon 3910 (usb) printer. Turns out it was the "ppd" file. Once I got the correct file and put it in the correct directory ... I was good to go.

krp

[bhobjj]

Thanks! I've tried to send something directly to the printer and that doesen't work. I'll check the permissions.


echo -en "\rHello\r\f" >/dev/usb/lp0

If direct printing dosent work, then maybe a module is missing.

rchotplug stop
modprobe printer
modprobe usblp
rchotplug start

Try compairing an lsmod in your 2 systems.

[uteck]

I think there are some epson specific tools you might need to install. Search apt for epson and see what turns up. Also, check if Ubuntu is printing to a socket. Some printer use only sockets for accepting print jobs, but I think I may be confusing network printing with local on that point..

[Lavene]

krp: Yea, I'm going to try that. Just has to figure out what file to 'steal' from Ubuntu.

bhobjj: Seems like I have the necessary modules but for some reason I can't make direct printing work. That didn't work under Ubuntu either by the way.

uteck: Yes, there is one: "escputil" whic I already have. It's also a part of the gutenburg driver package I believe.

Thanks guys. I'm letting the entire thing rest untill tomorrow I think, or else the printer might end up outside on the lawn and our bedroom would suddenly have a permanent open window. :twisted:


Tina ;)

[bhobjj]

Tina,
I have a couple ideas :?

look at:
/etc/cups/cups.d/ports.conf

It should be:
listen localhost:631

Also you could try copying your .ppd file from Ubuntu.

/etc/cups/ppd/*ppd

Or try to get a Linux driver (ppd file) from epson

Strange that I had the opposite experience. With Dapper my printer (old epson dot-matrix) is broken, it will only print in "draft mode".


-BoB

[Lavene]

Tina,
I have a couple ideas :?

look at:
/etc/cups/cups.d/ports.conf

It should be:
listen localhost:631


It is. I've also tried, in pure desperation, using 127.0.0.1 but of course that doesen't change anything.

Also you could try copying your .ppd file from Ubuntu.

/etc/cups/ppd/*ppd

Already tried that. But then cups refuse to start for some reason. Might be some Ubuntu thing. I wonder what will happen if I try to apt-get the entire cups/ gutenprint from the Ubuntu repos?

Or try to get a Linux driver (ppd file) from epson


They haven't even bothered to answer my e-mail...

This is really frustrating but I'm not giving up. Ubunto does it so it *must* be possible...

Tina

[tom_servo]

I think I might have a partial answer. It seems that in cups version 1.2 there is a bug with the usb back-end where it reports printers as not being ready when they really are. See cups bug #1738 (and a bunch of others it seems) at http://www.cups.org/str.php?L1738

It seems that until version 1.3 becomes current, the work around will be to replace your printer's URI with an older version that doesn't use the usb back-end. The new URI is written as USB:/manufacturer/model and the old one that seems to work is file:/dev/usb/lp0 . The problem with this is if you have more then 1 usb printer, they might be different device files each boot, depending on the order they are detected.

I know it is probably to late to help you Tina, but hopefully if someone searches this site for an answer (as I just did since this problem just appeared for me) they won't have to spend the couple of hours I just spent googling the answer.


Alain