Printer setup not working

[Marius Gedminas]

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 08:59:52PM -0500, Zach Uram wrote:
> Here is what I've done to get my HP Deskjet 960c color inkjet printer
> working in Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake):
> 
> Booted up, hooked my printer up to the parallel port and powered it
> on, added paper, printer's green light is on.
> 
> I then went to System -> Administration -> Printing
> Clicked on New Printer and it ran gnome-cups-add and read the printer database
> 
> Then the Add a Printer dialog box says:
> Step 1 of 3: Printer Connection
> Printer Type: local printer
> Use a detected printer: HP DESKJET_960C
> 
> It has in Printer Port: (greyed out so I can't change it):
> hp:/par/DESKJET_960C?device=/dev/parport0 (HP DESKJET_960C)
> 
> So it detected my correct printer.
> 
> Then I went Forward to:
> Step 2 of 3: Printer Driver
> Manufacturer: HP
> Model: Deskjet 960C
> Driver: hpijs (recommended) - HPLIP 0.9.7 (Suggested) There is a green
> dot after this showing it is installed.
> 
> Then I went Forward to:
> Step 3 of 3: Printer Information
> Name: Deskjet
> Description: HP-DESKJET
> Location: home
> 
> So after I filled those in I clicked Apply.
> 
> But when I go back to the Printers control panel I don't see any
> printer in there. It just says has the New Printer icon to create a
> new printer.

Hm...  It's been a while since I last worked with Dapper, but this seems
strangely familiar.  Does your user have the necessary permissions for
managing printers (i.e. belongs to of the 'lpadmin' group)?

I would seriously consider upgrading to 8.04 (Hardy Heron).  Printing
got more reliable in newer versions of Ubuntu, or at least that's my
impression.

Or you could try your luck configuring the printer over the web
interface (http://localhost:631/) rather than the GUI tool.

> I checked the log files and only thing I saw possibly relevant was in
> /var/log/syslog:
> 
> Dec 31 01:18:29 ubuntu kernel: [4498844.439000] lp0: ECP mode
> Dec 31 01:18:30 ubuntu kernel: [4498844.757000] lp0: ECP mode
> Dec 31 01:18:33 ubuntu kernel: [4498847.541000] ppdev0: registered pardevice
> Dec 31 01:18:33 ubuntu kernel: [4498847.570000] ppdev0: negotiated
> back to compatibility mode because user-space forgot
> Dec 31 01:18:33 ubuntu kernel: [4498847.570000] ppdev0: unregistered pardevice
> Dec 31 01:18:36 ubuntu kernel: [4498851.283000] lp0: ECP mode

Nah, it doesn't seem to be a problem.

> Is there a way I can manually force it to try and print using the
> drivers? It should work, I followed all the steps yet it never creates
> an entry for my printer :-( What is wrong?

I don't know, but searching for bug reports in http://launchpad.net
might find something.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
Bumper sticker: If you can read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you.
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