Re: [gentoo-user] Please help me get my printer working again.

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Dale.

On Sun, Jun 01, 2014 at 09:57:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > Hi, Gentoo.

> > My printer used to work.  According to CUPS, its last succesful print
> > was in February.  (Incidentally, I used to have an up-to-date system, but
> > that went when I screwed it up after Gentoo made Gnome-3 stable and I
> > tried to switch out of Gnome.  My last emerge --sync was around the same
> > time.)

> > When I tried to print a *.pdf from evince, I got an error message saying
> > /path/to/foomatic-rip didn't exist.  (Sorry, I can't reproduce the exact
> > error message any more).  It would seem there has been a change from
> > foomatic filters to cups-filters (which I have installed) at some stage.

> > But I don't recall this change, and I can't find any docs about how to
> > configure printing to use cups-filters.  When I go through the "Modify
> > printer" sequence in http://localhost:631, and try to change the filter,
> > I just get presented with a long list of foomatic filters.

> > I've been at this stage for some while now, dreading the impending hours
> > and hours of web searching.  Any tips people can give me to cut this
> > miserable process short will be most warmly received.

> > By the way, what has happened to the helpful documentation which used to
> > be at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en?  Most of it seems to have
> > disappeared.  There used to be a helpful doc on setting up a printer,
> > but that has gone.  (I'm lucky enough to be able to read the German
> > translations, which (largely, at least) still exist, but they're
> > somewhat out of date).


> When I run into this issue, I delete the printer and add it back.  For
> some reason, that has always fixed my issues. It seems that when CUPS
> gets upgraded, it needs the printers reconfigured from scratch. 

> Hope that helps.

Well it did, and it didn't.  I deleted then added the printer as you
suggested.  Nothing.  But somehow, that brought me to consider the error
message I reported above.  So I emerged foomatic-filters (which, somehow,
I'd removed in February), and now printing works, at least for files.pdf.

So, thanks for the email, it brought me back to sanity.

> Dale

> :-)  :-) 

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).