CUPS and Linux Printing
Generic article for CUPS and Linux Printing troubleshooting.
Problem: Printer is installed and jobs are queued.
Incoming jobs are being processed, then queued and the printer stops. Manually starting it from the System Settings – Printers does not work.
Solution: Check permissions on the device (typical parallel port printers: /dev/lp0). Eventhough CUPS is from group lp and lp0 is owned by root.lp it cannot print. A commandline chmod 666 solves this problem. Although /etc/udev/permissions.rules should also do this (there is a clause stating lp[0-9] to be 0660) there is also a line “printers/*:root:lp:0660” in /etc/udev/permissions.d/udev.permissions. Changing the 0660 into 0666 does however not solve the problem, after reboot the lp[0-9] come up as 660. This appears to have been fixed in Feisty Fawn (Kubuntu 7.4).
A fix is (which could be considered a hack) to have a script run at startup that chmod’s the lp0 to 666. Crude but effective.
Problem with HP printer?
HP LaserJet 1320n works perfect with Postscript PPD of foomatic/hpijs. The new HPLIP Toolbox is an excellent application that lets you check and control all printer settings.