USB Printer

[Edward Dekkers]

Edwin Humphries wrote:

> On 31 Mar 2004 at 8:58, Edward Dekkers wrote:
> 
> 
>>Edwin Humphries wrote:
>>
>>>We're trying to share an Epson USB printer via Samba on our new Fedora server.
> 
> 
>>>The share is set up OK, and can be seen and opened from Windows clients.
>>>However, although the Fedora box can print to the Epson, the Windows boxes can.
> 
> 
>>I'm assuming this is a typo, I'm sure you wouldn't be posting if they 
>>can both print OK.
> 
> 
> Yes, sorry: should read "can't".
> 
> 
>>>All other Samba shares, including a laser printer connected to the parallel
>>>port, work fine.
>>>
>>>Does anyone have a clue how to fix this?
> 
> 
>>Please tell us EXACTLY what's happening. Just saying something doesn't 
>>work really isn't good enough to guess what is going wrong.
> 
> 
> I've checked the port settings on the Epson driver: if I install it from the Epson 
> CD, it's set to LPT1: and can't be changed, so that doesn't work. If I install it 
> from the Add Printer "wizard", the job (usually print test from windows) shows up on 
> the Epson Status Monitor showing a connection error.

OK, forget the status monitor for starters - this is simply not going to 
work over the samba share, as it relies on the Windows driver. Linux 
doesn't have the Windows driver, hence the status monitor is not going 
to work.

I cannot remember EXACTLY what I did to get my C82 working like your 
configuration, but I do remember I had to change something inside the 
cups configuration files to set the cups system to RAW printing mode.

I found the answer on the net at that stage, and since the printer is no 
longer on my server, I cannot give you the exact answer. The reason I 
took it off the server and shared it with a real windows PC instead is 
because the C82 has 4 ink cartridges, yet only 1 ink out indicator. The 
status monitor is the ONLY way to see which ink is out. Really stupid on 
Epson's part, they obviously assumed everybody in the world runs 
Windows, but nothing I can do about it. The earlier printers with 1 
black, 1 tri-colour DID have 2 ink indicator LEDs, this has only become 
a problem in the recent models.

Just having a look in /etc/cups right now, I've found it again. There's 
two files: mime.types and mime.conv

BOTH have a section in there called RAW printing support. I simply 
un-commented those lines (as instructed in the comments), and hey 
presto, I could print to the Epson.

However - You haven't given us the model of the Epson, but if you have 
less ink indicator LEDs than actual inks inside the printer, you really 
do need the monitor unless someone's written a clever program for Linux 
to monitor this for you.

Regards,
Ed.