Printing in Slackware 8.1

[FLGator]

I haven't been able to figure this one out in almost 8 months of using slack. I have an Epson Stylus Color 740 connected via usb.

Here is the usb section of my rc.modules file:
### USB Host Controllers:
# Universal Host Controller Interface (Intel standard):
/sbin/modprobe usb-uhci

### USB device support:
# USB printer support:
/sbin/modprobe printer

I've downloaded and installed cups 1.1.16, gimp-print 4.3.5, and ESP Ghostscript 7.05.5. I installed and configured the printer via http://localhost:631.

When I try to print a test page, I get the job in the queue, but nothing prints out. Here is the last couple of errors from /var/log/cups/error log:
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 31173) for job 31.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstoraster (PID 31174) for job 31.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertoprinter (PID 31175) for job 31.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] PID 31176 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb (PID -31176) for job 31.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] PID 31174 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] [Job 31] No pages found!
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] PID 31175 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:03 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 31178) for job 31.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstoraster (PID 31179) for job 31.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertoprinter (PID 31180) for job 31.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] PID 31181 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb (PID -31181) for job 31.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] [Job 31] Unable to open USB device "usb://EPSON/Stylus%20COLOR%20740?serial=,?0@?0@8Ú@": No such device
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] PID 31179 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] [Job 31] No pages found!
E [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] PID 31180 stopped with status 1!
I [10/Nov/2002:09:11:13 +0100] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I'm willing to try and re-install cups, gimp-print, and ESP Ghostscript, but need to know how to uninstall them. make uninstall is not working.

Please help. I really want to stick with slack, but if I can't print I may have to switch to Mandrake.

 

[cleverhandle]

Arg... printing. It's the only thing I actually prefer having the pretty GUI tools for. CUPS makes it (a lot) better, but it's still a pain. How did you install the software - Slack packages or source? Also, are you sure that the USB printer is being initialized properly? I seem to recall having to do something with usbdevfs to get my USB Lexmark working. Check out your proc directory after loading the modules, and see if the printer is recognized there somewhere.

I've got a Slack system that needs printing set up right now, so I'll check it out later on today or tomorrow. I've gotten it working before with the same hardware, but it's been a while and I don't remember the details.

 

[FLGator]

I installed cups, gimp, and esp from source.

$cat /proc/devices gives this:

Character devices:
1 mem
2 pty
3 ttyp
4 ttyS
5 cua
7 vcs
10 misc
14 sound
21 sg
29 fb
109 lvm
128 ptm
129 ptm
136 pts
137 pts
162 raw
180 usb

Block devices:
1 ramdisk
2 fd
3 ide0
7 loop
9 md
11 sr
22 ide1
43 nbd
58 lvm


Should the printer be explicitly called out or does it fall under usb?

 

[FLGator]

If I su then type cat /etc/fstab > /dev/usb/lp0
It prints no problem.

If I'm a normal user, I get "Permission denied"

 

[cleverhandle]

Try printing using CUPS as root - if root prints OK, then it's just the permissions that are the problem. You can change that with "chmod 666 /dev/usb/lp0". You can print directly to CUPS at the command line using "lp" - just "lp filename" should work. Or use the web interface like you were before. If that works, you're set, though individual applications (like OpenOffice) may need to be configured somewhere in their options.