[gentoo-user] Network printing

[Peter Humphrey]

Hello,

This follows from the printing-from-windows thread; it's not confined to 
Windows.

Thanks to Mark K for his help so far. To recap:

My network server box has two USB printers attached: a Kyocera FS1020D 
laser, which works just fine, and an HP Deskjet D4260, which doesn't: I can 
print to the Deskjet from the local machine but not from anywhere else.

CUPS is installed with USE="acl dbus jpeg pam perl png python ssl 
tiff -X -avahi -gnutls -java -kerberos -ldap -php -ppds -samba -slp -static -xinetd -zeroconf"

Hplip is installed with USE="cupsddk dbus 
doc -fax -minimal -parport -ppds -qt3 -qt4 -scanner -snmp" I ran hp-setup 
as root, and it detected the printer and inserted it into cups, where I can 
control it as expected using the cups Web pages.

(I've already quoted part of cupsd.conf, but I can repeat it if necessary.)

Now this is what happens today: I go to localhost:631 on my workstation and 
attempt to connect to the Deskjet. I tell cups it's an HP model via ipp, 
and I accept the very generic driver it offers me, and I see it's "added 
successfully". Then I ask for a test page and I get "Unsupported 
format 'application/postscript'!" So I delete the printer and start again.

This time I supply the .ppd file I got from linuxprinting.org instead of the 
generic HP one, and once again I get "added successfully". But at the very 
next screen I get "Filter "foomatic-rip" for printer "Deskjet_D4260" not 
available: No such file or directory". Yet foomatic-rip is right there 
in /usr/bin, being part of the foomatic-filters package which was pulled in 
by emerging hplip.

I've tried exploring the Web for trouble-shooting tips on HP printers, and 
the best I've found is HP's own site, where I get dark hints about snmp. I 
also half-remember having to include ldap in cups from some time ago, but I 
can't see what either of those might have to do with my problem - am I 
missing something?

As an aside, it really is daft of cups to report "added successfully" when 
it has no idea of the success of the operation.

Another aside: what could cause the cups admin pages to lose their graphical 
effects and revert to plain white background, with framed text strings 
where the buttons ought to be? This happens quite often.

-- 
Rgds
Peter