Information: USB printer on Gentoo AMD-64

[xarnab]

Dear gentooers:

i am a recent convert to gentoo and I find it really nice. I recently got a new machine with a AMD 64 processor trying to be on the edge. I soon found that a lot of applications do not work too well.

I managed to install a EPSON USB printer yesterday and I want to put this on the forum to reduce the headaches of those who try printing on linux on a desktop.

I am using CUPS with the gimp-print driver, the installation steps are:

1) Ensure that you have ghostscript installed. (emerge ghostscript)
2) Install CUPS (emerge CUPS)
3) Install the gimp-print driver (Using emerge gimp-print did not work too well for me as I do not know how to pass parameters to the configure script using "emerge") I just downloaded the latest driver and used (a) ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-cups (b) make (c) make install
4) Ensure that your printer is switched ON and connected to the machine
5) Start the cups daemon /etc/init.d/cupsd start (Run as root)
6) Use the CUPS web based administrative tool (http://localhost:631) and configure the printer using an appropriate driver
7) Print a test page

These steps assume that you have USB support built into the kernel and that you have the device /dev/usb/lp0 created and available when the printer is connected to the machine.


_________________
Arnab

[J.M.I.T.]

Maybe you should checkout the excellent documentation of Gentoo at http://docs.gentoo.org
You can find a Printing guide there too:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/printing-howto.xml
_________________
Get a life...

[xarnab]

Thanks for the help ful hint, unfortunately the page does not exist or cannot be reached from here:

Not Found
The requested URL /docs was not found on this server.

Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.gentoo.org Port 80
_________________
Arnab

[artooman]

I am also going through the process of installing my first printer in linux. I need to use gimp-print-5.0.0_beta2 since it is only driver to support my printer (canon photo printer, cp-220). Anyway, the gentoo print guides goes through the process of installing a printer with CUPS and samba (for network print). It seems to be pretty good, but I can't find a mention of gimp-print, and the printer database that it refers me to does not support my printer. Anyway, try that guide if you still have problems. I will let you know if I am successful with gimp-print. You may not need gimp-print at all.

I have one important thing to note about your compilation of gimp-print. You did *not* need to compile that outside of emerge. The USE flags takes care of *exactly* what you needed it to do with regard to ./configure options. If you have "cups" in your USE flags, it will pass --with-cups. To see what flags are being used with a given emerge, type "emerge -pv package-name". This will show all of the USE flags that are being used or not used. For instance, "emerge -pv gimp-print" shows "+cups" indicating it is using "cups" from my USE flags. If it says "-cups", that indicates that you do not have "cups" in your USE flags and should add it if you want it.

Good luck.

[J.M.I.T.]