18.04 has no support for my printer

[Peter Flynn]

On 16/10/18 00:01, Brian wrote:
> On Mon 15 Oct 2018 at 22:06:44 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote:
[...]
>> ALL distros suffer from significant printer-driver
>> incompatibilities using CUPS.
> 
> Significant? Really? Examples, please.

I'd have to go back and work them out, but basically every printer I
have installed for the last decade has had at least one facility missing
or buggy when used through the CUPS in whatever distro I was using at
the time. When used via Windows or via the more up-to-date CUPS in a
Mac, the facilities all worked. The most common inabilities were the
handling of double-sided printing, the size/scale controls, and the
naming and data for different paper sizes.

Installing hplip afresh each time does seem to fix things.

> The 1510 has been supported since hplip 3.13.8. I very much doubt
> 3.18.9 from the hplip site would make any difference. The hpcups
> driver is hardly likely to to have changed in any significant way.

That has not been my experience :-)

> 
>>> warning: Failed to read /etc/cups/ppd/Deskjet_1510_1804.ppd ppd file
>>
>> That's the one it's looking for. Sometimes the CUPS that comes with
>> distros simply omits a driver. I always use a fresh hplip to install.
> 
> Whatever you think that iwarning means (and you do not say) - it does
> not mean what you think it means. Your interpretation is about as far
> from reality as it is possible to get.

I interpret the error message to mean that it can't find the PPD file it
was looking for: /etc/cups/ppd/Deskjet_1510_1804.ppd

If it means something else then I have misunderstood the message.

> CUPS (do you really mean CUPS?) has very few driver+++s and is not likely
> to omit any.

I have always assumed that CUPS is shipped with a large number of PPD
files. These appear to be the "drivers" that it lists in the very long
per-manufacturer selection list when installing a new printer. If not,
then I don't know where it gets them from.

///Peter