PRINTER: Basic Install with CUPS - HOW TO

[penguinlnx]

I had my printer install beaten with the following procedure:

(1) CUPS, FOOMATIC-FILTER, and GHOSTSCRIPT need to be running. Emerge foomatic-filters if you need to.
In my distro (VLOL-Gentoo) two are already installed and running, so I only need the FOOMATIC-FILTER. I either emerge foomatic-filters or do it from Portal/Portage. To check if CUPS is running, try #/etc/init.d/CUPSD STATUS <CR>. If needed, you can get it going with #/etc/init.d/CUPSD START <CR>. If it's not installed, you could #emerge cups <cr> from the console, I think. If you have to do any of this, it is probably a good idea to reboot, to make sure everything is now installed and running.

(2) Get the .PPD file for your printer and put it in the /usr/share/cups/model/ folder.
I went to www.linuxprinting.org and fetched the hl1250.ppd file from there and downloaded it directly into /usr/share/cups/model/<yourprintername.ppd> . You can seemingly compile this file too, at this website manually. In my case, the hl-1250 is available and is supposed to work for my Brother hl-1230 laser printer also. You will need to REBOOT again for the new .ppd file to be noticed and incorporated into CUPS as an option.

(3) Go to localhost:631 using your web-browser and install the printer in CUPS.
This apparently runs a local config program for CUPS. When you get there, you click on printers, and you are prompted for your username and password (use 'root' & whatever the password for 'root' is.) Go through the steps to install a printer, including selecting your brand and finding the driver (.ppd). Configure the printer. In my case, 300 dpi was all the driver supports. Test the printer by printing a test page. (Reboot if necessary* see (4) below)

(4) Reconfigure Printer again after Rebooting:
Well, I thought that covered it all, for it appeared to work fine the first time. (although when printing using a web-browser, long webpages are broken up and a few lines are lost at the top of each page.) However, the second time I followed this procedure, after reinstalling my OS, it didn't work. The CUPS/driver talks to the printer, because I can see the lights flashing, but no pages come out. I just went to localhost:631 again to see if there was some other menu options or something to slap the printer in the face, and I selected 'PRINTERS' and hit the 'Configure Printer' button. The info there was correct, but I pressed the 'continue' button anyway (reconfiguring with the same info). I came back to the PRINTERS screen and hit the PRINT TEST PAGE button, and lo and behold, NOW it prints! It is possible that the printer and drivers can get out of sync, or there may be a software glitch or two.
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:scratch: :confused: :study: I hope this helps make it easy for most of you anyway.

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[metalifloyd]

I've had a lot of experience setting up various printers with cups. I've found you can skip quite a few unnecessary steps from both the official Gentoo Printing Guide and penguinlnx's tutorial. foomatic is not necessary unless you are unable to find a suitable ppd file from linuxprinting.org or your printer manufacturers site. By the way Xerox offers good ppd files for their entire Phaser line of printers, they even officially support linux

[johntramp]

Shoudl I be able to print to that printer from the rest of the lan with that setup?

[Sargonmetal]