How do I get a network printer installed in ubuntu 9.04?

How do I get a network printer installed in ubuntu 9.04?

My girlfriend's work computer now has Linux on one of the partitions, and for the most part it's running fine--except that I can't seem to get the network printers configured right. There are two of them: a Lanier MP 7500/LD275 and a Lanier MP C3000/LD430c, and Linux seems to have found them both automatically. I'll go through the steps of what I did, and what exactly went wrong.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 281

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bert [Entry]

"The Windows side of this computer does print to both printers, right? If not, this machine may not be allowed to print to them.

Assuming the Windows side prints OK, your next step is to check the CUPS error log at /var/log/cups/error_log. Anything interesting there?

According to this post on the Ubuntu forums, one Jaunty user had a problem with automatic PPD download. Check that the directory /usr/share/cups/model exists, and manually create it if it doesn't (like so):

sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model
sudo chmod 755 /usr/share/cups/model

If you needed to create that directory, try deleting and re-adding the printers from the Administration > Printing tool. I expect you'll need to use the original ""socket://"" URI and not the ""lpd://"".

If that doesn't work, you'll need to do some more digging. Here's some pages at the OpenPrinting database that will help. First, both printers seem to be well supported:

Lanier MP 7500/LD275
Lanier MP C3000/LD430c

Ubuntu uses CUPS, and both printer pages above link to this CUPS documentation. You've gone through the first step, which is to try the distribution's own tool, but that's not quite working. You may need to download PPD files manually from the printer pages above. This FAQ talks about how to install PPD files:

How do I install a PPD file?

Use command line or CUPS web interface.

* Command line installation. (updated for Ubuntu)
$ sudo /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p replace_with_printer_name -E -v socket://replace_with_printer_ipaddress:9100 -P replace_with_ppd_name

* CUPS web interface.
Open http://127.0.0.1:631/printers from your browser, click ""Add Printer"" and follow the steps.

Check the rest of the FAQ for other interesting possible solutions. (Like UserCodes your driver may need to send to the printer to authorize a print job. Wheee!)"