#1 2009-09-12 03:20:16

pre_historic94

Cups with USB printer

I am using Slitaz Cooking, Sorry for the broken English
I had install the cups and configure it with my printer Brother HL-1430 (USB printer).
It is working well

Using this method:
modprobe usblp
mknod /dev/usb/lp0 c180 0
chmod 666 /dev/usb/lp0

start/restart install cups


There are erros at print test page.

it shows:


Error:

Unsupported format 'application/postscript'!

I also tried to print in firefox and leafpad editor but the printer doesnt seem worked.
Then I checked on in the Jobs. It says

No jobs.

Is this the problem with Slitaz or Cups?
Is there anything that i still can try?

Last edited by pre_historic94 (Yesterday 05:42:39)

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Cups does not offer usb choice. What are the correct uri and device for a local usb printer?

Thank you.

Hi,

If one have some time we could add this guide to the new Wiki: http://community.slitaz.org/wiki

- Christophe

The tazhw box failed at the browser's cups login where no login worked, not even root.

I un/reinstalled cups through tazpkg manager and entered cupsd in terminal and the run box, which starts cupsd (visible in conky) but does nothing else.

In older slitaz, cupsd would launch a browser.

How do I fix it?

Thnak you.

my hp Printer is working fine, but I did it by hand.I did not try tazhw box until now, but I hope this helps that you can login cups:

addgroup tux lp
addgroup root lp
/etc/init.d/cupsd start

and to open cups you have to type http://localhost:631 in your browser

its on my list since long to make the printing wiki, but at the moment I have to much work

Tazhw login worked once but does not work again.

Kultex is correct that other methods now require a manual start of browser.

Entering cupsd in the run box starts cupsd (only in root session) but login fails (even if in root session).
Entering /etc/init.d./cupsd in terminal starts cupsd and login works (as root even without "addgroup root" command).

I do not remember all the combinations of when I was in a total root session and when I when in a non-root user session following root prompts as necessary.

Kultex's method appeared to install the printer but the test print fails-

Unsupported format 'application/vnd.cups-banner'!

Edit- even in a total root session, the test print says unsupported and the self test and clean heads both say not allowed to print.

How do I fix it?

Thank you.

slitaz 3 xvesa, epson usb printer, cups in midori, gutenprint, all users are in group lp

can you find errors in /var/log/cups/error_log

did you try all this things :

http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/1248/#Comment_1248

I printed finally after 2 years.

It is messy so I still have some questions.

Installed (not counting depends through the package manager)-

usbutils (for usb printer)
cups
gutenprint (for epson driver)
hal-cups-utils (not sure if it helped anything)
ghostscript (think it stopped "format-not-supported" error but not sure)

A reboot might be necessary (not sure).

I (as root) did pre-historic64's commands at http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/1531/#Comment_1531 from http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi with 005/003 from lsusb results with the printer connected to the computer and on (not sure if I should have used 005/003 or */*)-

addgroup tux lp
addgroup root lp
lsusb
chmod 666 /dev/bus/usb/005/003
chgrp lp /dev/bus/usb/005/003
/etc/init.d/cupsd start

A reboot might be necessary before cupsd start (not sure).

Then I manually opened a browser, entered http://localhost:631 , created a printer profile from the recognized printer and identified driver, added a user, and printed a test page.

Abiword automatically listed the printer and printed (earlier, it listed the printer but did not print).

1. I am not sure why this was a 2-year mystery. The slitaz handbook has no documentation and a dead link for printing ( http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:start ). The user wiki does not even say to install cups ( http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:printer ). If cups is not necessary, it would be nice to know. If ghostscript is necessary, it would be nice to know. Edit- What are the required packages for a local usb printer?

2. What is the smallest installation? Now that I have the ppd to save somewhere, can I uninstall gutenprint or start over without gutenprint?

3. Cups permissions are a mess. Despite adding users and groups, it seems that non-root users cannot add printers but root cannot print, only one user ("tux") can print. The command-line lppasswd failed by saying "tux" did not exist even though "tux" is the only user that can print. Does the cups user have to be a slitaz username or is the cups account completely different and can use any name? Does the cups password have to be the same as a slitaz password? How do you add users in the cups gui (only one name at a time? multiple names separated by commas?)?

Thank you.

dont blame the howto - make it better - its our job. And the "disadvantage" of a wonderful OS with 30MB is, that not all things work out of the box.

I was in the same situation as you - there are quite a lot of wikis out there - especially the arch wiki is normally very helpful - http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS - it pointed me to cupsd.conf and to lp group and the rest did google......

The purpose of my last post, the whole thread, and most of my time on the forum is to make better howtos.

Notice the thread title, "Printing how to?"

Notice that the first post rescues some of over a year's worth of user contributions deleted with the old forum and old wiki last year.

Anyone who can answer my last post's 1, 2, and 3 could help to make a better howto.

Thank you.

Ps- Yes, arch is helpful.

interestingly, i asked the forum a few days ago about how to print with cups then replied with a pointer to a page that explains how to do it (i defined my hp, parallel printer with not too many problems, once the appropriate package where downloaded). I even have been able to define the printer so as to print remotely from an XP machine.
I think i have hit also the problem that you mentionned ie cupsd will not start the cups deamon properly
The reason i believe is because

root@slitaz:/home/tux# find / -name cupsd -print
+ find / -name cupsd -print
/usr/sbin/cupsd
/etc/init.d/cupsd

there are 2 different files, they probably do not do exactly the same thing ;) though i did not investigate

I have still a problem with hplip though, i will investigate some more. It seems it has not been "make"ed with the right option for parallel printers, and i do not have the sane support for that reason.

I will do a howto sumarising my experience here, if this can be helpful

The double cupsd is good to know.

Some people were using cups through routers and networks when others could not use local printers.

I think serial packages relate to parallel ports but I could be wrong.

My usb printer had a printer driver specific to the usb version but there was a very similarly named driver for the parallel version, easy to confuse.

The wiki covers an hp but does not say if it was parallel. It does not say to install cups. It does mention an alternate method, hp-setup.

http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:printer

Slitaz printing worked for 5 minutes the other day and now, the next time, it failed again.

I set up a new profile by repeating what worked last time but now no printer profile will print.

It seems to accept the job and gives various progress messages but the printer does not move and the error log looks like a loop of-

D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: clients=0
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: jobs=23
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: jobs-active=1
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: printers=3
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: printers-implicit=0
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: stringpool-string-count=967
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: stringpool-alloc-bytes=9968
D [23/Apr/2010:19:27:28 +0000] Report: stringpool-total-bytes=23608

How do I fix it?

Thank you.

I tried reinstalling packages and now cups will not even find the printer like it did in the past.

Previously setup profiles still fail.

E [24/Apr/2010:21:06:35 +0000] Unable to fork /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb - Cannot allocate memory.
E [24/Apr/2010:21:06:35 +0000] [Job 33] Stopping job because the sheduler could not execute the backend.
E [24/Apr/2010:21:06:35 +0000] Unable to fork /usr/lib/cups/filter/texttops - Cannot allocate memory.
E [24/Apr/2010:21:06:35 +0000] [Job 34] Unable to start filter "texttops" - Cannot allocate memory.
E [24/Apr/2010:21:06:35 +0000] [Job 34] Stopping job because the scheduler could not execute a filter.

Ubuntu printing took 5 minutes to setup and worked for 2 years.

Slitaz printing took 2 years to setup and worked for 5 minutes.


Puppy printing took 5 minutes to setup.


How do I setup slitaz printing?

Thank you.

it says there is a memory allocation issue. Are you short on memory ?

I got a HP PSC750 working after some trouble. I,m used to CUPS but that didn't work from the beginning. When looking for devices in tazhw I was asked if I wanted to start CUPS. It started but it was not possible to use commands as login was erratic. Something was wrong with the lib aspell. I fond and installed it separate and did a new install of cups and hplip. Printer show up in lsusb and its possible to print a test page from CUPS and text from an editor. My first attempt with a HP deskjet D2660 didn't work although the right PPD was loaded. The error msg was "hpcups not available". My HP laserjet connectet to the parallell port can't be found anywhere, but I,m short of time right now and will work with that later.

I have 2gb memory.

The aspell did not seem to be a factor with mine.

I uninstalled and installed many packages.

The latest log entries do not seem to show errors but the job is stuck processing.

I,m new to Slitaz. Installed it a couple of weeks ago. Do not yet understands how Tazhw is supposed to work, but it detected my printer on USB and gave me a choice to start CUPS and also started midori. CUPS has been around for years and should be stable and well documented. From the start page there is a lot of help information. When the printer is installed most administration can be done from command line, ie. lpstat, lpr and many more.
As most of my printers are from HP I have installed hplip to get the actual PPD-drivers. They are integrated with CUPS and made it easy to choose the right one.
After CUPS has installed the printer with the right driver it sends debug information if something don't work and that makes it easier to troubleshoot.
Good luck

Thank you for the report, arnljot.

It seems like slitaz printing should be as easy as in ubuntu and puppy but jozee said the slitaz developers were working hard on printing even after slitaz 2 was released.

Arnljot reported printing hp by installing cups but not hal-cups-utils while another user reported the opposite, printing hp by installing hal-cups-utils but not cups.

The slitaz 3 stable xvesa repos have-

2 copies of samba-pam
2 copies of hal-pam
dependency loop between hal-pam and ghostscript

I setup and printed with ubuntu cups and puppy cups in 5 minutes but after 2 years I still have almost no idea how to get slitaz cups to print a local usb epson printer.

How do I fix it?

Thank you.

Slicel: I and others have tested printing on several printers now. It works out-of-the-box. Slitaz has almost all printer drivers support. If there is an error, we want to improve our script.

I accept that we have not the updated the wiki with step-by-step guide. But there are few forum post with the useful information.

It would be more useful if you post some specific troubleshooting that you have done. Atleast post the output on xterm of :

tazhw setup printer 

For epson printer, you need to atleast select gutenprint package. Try this on a live CD first.

We just can't help you if you don't post specific output. Sorry, for being impolite.

I am not sure if you read the thread but my posts have so many specifics that they are top-10 google results for certain linux problems.

I tried to start with just gutenprint through tazhw but tazhw kept installing many other packages even when I selected few or none (N), so I had to scrap both of those live cd sessions.

Before scrapping one of them, I tried cups through tazhw but it still had the login failure that arnljot reported a few days ago and I reported a couple of weeks ago in this thread.

Instead, I deleted another installation and did a fresh hd install of the os. Then, installing only gutenprint with no depends did not work. Installing gutenprint with depends (I do not remember installing anything else) (Edit- actually, I just redid it and it failed twice, needing aspell and ghostscript) worked, it identified the epson printer and printed.

This puts it back to the status of a week ago, except in this new installation the printer does not appear automatically in abiword when abiword is started with cupsd running (and the abiword in repos is still broken with the blank display problem).

Differences (as far as I could tell) between new and old installations despite being from same cd-
One installed cups-pam but not cups with gutenprint while the other was the opposite.
One did not install ghostscript with gutenprint while the other did (Edit- I might have added ghostscript manually both times).
One required extra chmod and group commands while the other did not (Edit- maybe the chmods were unneeded the 1st time too).
One was autodetected by abiword while the other was not (Edit- Both autodetetct but one still has generic printer icon and will not print as root).

The old installation's printer profiles just stopped working and creating new printer profiles produced a strange uri that also did not work. I do not know if that is a backend problem but, as reported earlier, the recent error log with debugging entries did not have E error lines despite the stuck "processing." All attempts to reinstall printing on the old installation fail.

I asked about proper uri on the old forum without success. Many websites refer to usb:/dev/usb/lp0 but that is obsolete with newer cups (not sure about with foomatic).

The only uri that worked briefly in slitaz (x is a long serial number)-
usb://EPSON/Stylus%20C40?serial=x

The puppy uri works reliably in puppy without the ?serial=x.

The puppy and ubuntu uri did not work in slitaz.

Partially answering my own questions as best I can (could be wrong)-

1. What are the required packages for a local usb printer?

I do not know. I think epson stylus needs ghostscript and gutenprint and maybe usbutils.

2. What is the smallest installation? Now that I have the ppd to save somewhere, can I uninstall gutenprint or start over without gutenprint?

No, gutenprint seems necessary for drivers and filters. An old ppd will not work with a new gutenprint version (although there is a cups-genppdupdate script). The gutenprint readme says cups-dev is necessary and suggests that spoolers are optional (you "may" use them) but both could be wrong. I think cups is not necessary because gutenprint can work without it by using foomatic instead (I am not sure if you do not need foomatic either). If cups is not necessary, I do not know why it is a depends of gutenprint.

3. Does the cups user have to be a slitaz username or is the cups account completely different and can use any name? Does the cups password have to be the same as a slitaz password? How do you add users in the cups gui (only one name at a time? multiple names separated by commas?)?

The authorized user list does not add users, it deletes users. Default is all users so adding one name to the user list deletes everyone else. I still am not sure how to enter multiple names in the gui (commas?) but it might be like command line and the cups manual has instructions for command line. I do not know if the names and passwords have to be slitaz ones.

Thank you.

Installing gutenprint with depends (I do not remember installing anything else) worked, it identified the epson printer and printed.

As I have guessed, it worked. If it doesn't print now, it simply means that you have try to change your system and messed it up. I don't think we can help you in this regard. The best I can say is that you do "tazhw setup printer" again, it will redo the steps and hopefully your printing will work.

If you want to learn and understand how printing work, the best way is to read the tazhw script. Internet has just too much unwanted information.

I am really busy these days. I don't think I will be able to help you anymore in this regard. Maybe someone else can help you.

I am not sure if you read the whole post and I have to amend the one sentence that you quoted.

1. The tazhw instructions that you gave and tazhw did not work. At least 3 people reported 4 times either in this thread or in the wiki printer page that tazhw failed. Papagoose had to use hp-setup instead and can print but cannot change his printer settings. Tazhw seems to be missing aspell, as arnljot mentioned.

2. Slitaz 3 xvesa failed to print on a fresh install after recharging the tazpkg list and installing gutenprint with depends (I redid it as if I were a new user and took note of each step). First, cups failed to login (similar to papagoose's #4). I installed aspell-en with depends and was able to login. Next, cups failed to print because of format. I installed ghostscript with depends and was able to print.

3. Installing another slitaz package breaks cups/printing. I traced the problem for you. On a full hd fresh installation, setup printing and print, install module-init-tools with depends, shutdown and reboot, and cups will not print (at least with the xvesa flavor and epson usb printer).

These problems are brick walls to many new users who probably will toss their slitaz cds in the trash before they stumble upon aspell or ghostscript, when a few adjustments in response to user reports could solve the problems.

Thank you.

@slicel : Thanks. I liked your previous post. Very clear and helped us a lot. Problem is fixed for the next cooking: http://hg.slitaz.org/slitaz-tools/rev/ba631807a0e1 .

The problem with module-init-tools is not clear and needs more debugging.

Maybe encryption interfere with access to CUPS. I don't see encryption is needed for a local printer. In /etc/cups/cupsd.conf I have that row commented out. In that file there is also comments about what user
and administrator can do in CUPS.

Restrict access to the admin pages...

# Encryption Required
Order allow,deny


In my slitaz its not possible to get to CUPS via http://localhost:631 first time after start, I have to go via
tazhw. After that the browser goes direct to CUPS as expected. Not a big problem and it might
go away with next install.
Maybe someone could help me with the install of a HP D2660 Deskjet. Hplip that I installed seems to
have very few deskjets. Hplip 3.10.2 have drivers for the printer but it is in a hplip-3.10.2.run file and I
don't know how to get the drivers to the right places in slitaz.
Thanks in advance.

The browser will open 631 without tazhw if as root you first enter xterm command-

# /etc/init.d/cupsd start

It is not user-friendly. You probably can add that command as a boot script but then cups runs all the time.

I see hplip 3.9.10 in repos and hp suggests the d2660 will work on it (3.9.6 or higher)-

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/deskjet/deskjet_d2600_series.html

Cool link shared.
It helped a lot.