(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi,

I have an old PIII machine running Precise Puppy V 5.7.1 as a live disc.

I bought a used printer and wanted a temporary machine just to test it out with.

I used CUPS, found the appropriate PPD file for the make and model and set up the printer which apparently works fine. Locally.

Just for fun, I shared the printer in CUPS and tried to access it from another machine on my LAN.

On the remote machine I am running Linux Mint 19. I use the printer setup utility on L/M (which looks like a front end to CUPS to me) and it appears to find the remote printer but my print jobs disappear as complete without actually appearing on paper.

Is there something about sharing a printer in CUPS that I have overlooked? I don't think I have the firewall enabled on Puppy. Is it enabled by default on a live disk installation? Can it be turned off?

Thanks,

Brian H.

Check the versions of CUPS you have installed.

I believe 5.7.1 had CUPS 1.4.8 installed. After about CUPS 1.5ish they changed the way things are shared, and it isn't easily compatible between old and new CUPS.

How / what were you trying to print?

I recently had a similar issue between old and new Puppies. My new Puppy would not easily find the old Puppy's printer in CUPS. I was pulling my hair out looking for a solution.

After enlisting the help of jamesbond (super duper expert) I discovered that whilst the printers aren't found in CUPS, they were there in Libreoffice...

@ Brian:-

If CUPS isn't correctly sharing your attached printer with another machine, a couple of thoughts:-

a) The obvious, I know, but.....you do have the printer driver installed, yes?

b) Be aware that CUPS, unless you specifically select otherwise in the 'Print...' dialogue, tends to default to CUPS-PDF. Thus, you wouldn't get anything sent to the printer.

c) Finally, I agree with Don, above. Older versions of CUPS were much more straight-forward than newer versions. In Xenialpup, for instance, I found that 'sharing' simply would not activate, no matter how much you faffed around with CUPS. I found a solution that works for me. Go here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=455543

.....and take a look at Bill's thread on the p910nd print server. It's extremely straight-forward, and effectively bypasses CUPS altogether. Setting Puppy up for it is a wee bit more involved than CUPS itself, but not by much. You get a GUI that lets you set-up autostarting, turning on/off, etc. And it works very well.

It works fine for me in 571 running on ye anciente Dell lappie - Precise is the best Pup I've found for the old girl, by a country mile. It lets me access the Epson SX218 printer connected to the big Compaq desktop, which is my main system.....and prints without issues.

It's definitely worth a look. The man page gives some more information:-

https://man.cx/p910nd

Let us know if that helps. AFAIK, it should be in the Mint repositories, so ought to be easy enough to install.....though I doubt you'll get a GUI to control it, as it's essentially just a daemon. Bill's GUI covers both server-side and client-side operations, the idea being to install the .pet package on both Pups at either end.


Mike.

G'day,

This may apply to Precise Pups, but I'd like to know about virtually all Pups sharing a network printer.

Is it possible to use a symlink of a suitable CUPS config file from a shared data partition to Pups in different partitions on the same computer?
If so, which CUPS config file (or files)?

My situation:
Changing ISPs, we now have a new modem for our LAN on which is a networked wifi-enabled Epson multifunction printer (model WF-2510). It has a static IP address to avoid the hassle of DCHP resets of its address.

I am able to run the scanner on the Epson by sym-linking the new address through the /etc/sane.d/ config files (epson2 (for xsane) and epkowa (for iscan) text files). When I set up a new Pup, I delete the original epson2 config file and replace it with a symlink to the modified config on my data partition. The epkowa file link is added in my all-apps sfs. (Screenshots show an iscan scanner set-up example.)

But CUPS looks more complicated (CUPS directories seem to be everywhere in Puppy) and there are many different CUPS versions across the Pups.
The printers.conf file in /etc/cups/ (screenshot) looks the likely candidate but will this be the same in each Pup CUPS version?

An example of this conf. file text is:

# Printer configuration file for CUPS v2.2.8
# Written by cupsd
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE WHEN CUPSD IS RUNNING
<DefaultPrinter CUPS-PDF>
UUID urn:uuid:9c647468-84a9-3023-6073-0afef1c4cdcb
Info CUPS-PDF
MakeModel Ghostscript
DeviceURI pdf-writer:/export/share/pdf/
State Idle
StateTime 1540196952
ConfigTime 1540159095
Type 8450124
Accepting Yes
Shared Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy retry-job
</DefaultPrinter>
<Printer EPSON_WF-2510_Series>
UUID urn:uuid:ec0cc673-fe94-30f9-619f-9c71a0077005
Info EPSON WF-2510 Series
Location network192.168.0.100
MakeModel Epson WF-2510 Series - epson-inkjet-printer-escpr 1.4.0-1lsb3.2 (Seiko Epson Corporation LSB 3.2)
DeviceURI lpd://192.168.0.200:515/PASSTHRU
State Idle
StateTime 1551740021
ConfigTime 1559001735
Type 4108
Accepting Yes
Shared Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
OpPolicy default
ErrorPolicy retry-job
Attribute marker-colors \#000000,#FFFF00,#FF00FF,#00FFFF
Attribute marker-levels 100,100,100,100
Attribute marker-names Black Ink Cartridge 200XL/200,Yellow Ink Cartridge 200XL/200,Magenta Ink Cartridge 200XL/200,Cyan Ink Cartridge 200XL/200
Attribute marker-types ink-cartridge,ink-cartridge,ink-cartridge,ink-cartridge
Attribute marker-change-time 1551740021
</Printer>

The "uuid" references are a bit of a worry - are they constants in each Pup?

Anyway, has anyone experience or knowledge of using this symlink possibility in CUPS?

Thanks,
David S.

David:-

Rather than doing all that, why not take a look at Bill's (rcrsn51) p910ND print server (as I mentioned in the above post)?

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=455543

It'll save all that messing about with CUPS.....which is a frickin' nightmare at the best of times!

Just a thought....


Mike.

G'day Mike W.,

I looked at the thread for rcrsn51's print server but I read this as requiring the printer to be attached directly to a computer (the server).
Our network Epson printer is connected to our LAN via wifi only.
This seems to rule out rcrsn51's server package?

Our "new & wonderful" cable modem has a usb socket which could maybe be its connection to our LAN but wifi-to-printer has been fine in the recent past with the older adsl modem, and is fine so far with the new modem.

It's just taking time going through all my Pups manually 'modifying the printer' in CUPS to the new IP address for the network printer.

My tests so far have not worked, replacing the original printers.conf file in /etc/cups/ with a sym-link to an edited version of printers.conf that has the new IP address.
In Pups so far, CUPS keeps coming up with the original printers.conf information until I do the 'Modify printer' step in CUPS for the Pup.

If the sym-link idea is actually possible, it may require someone who knows what they are doing - always a hurdle too high for me .

Thanks anyway for the suggestion,

David S.