Bug#373722: [Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#373722: web interface doesn't show list of available cupsys-driver-gutenprint drivers when adding a new printer

[Roger Leigh]

Martin Steigerwald <Martin at lichtvoll.de> writes:

[Printer installation]
> 4) Name: EpsonStylusColor600-2
> (-2 since I already have one configured, shouldnt matter got the same 
> problem without -2)
> Location: "" (emptry string)
> Description: Epson Stylus Color 600

That's fine.

> 6) Device: Parallel Port #1 (EPSON)

There should also be an LPT#1 option (or similar).  Could you try that
instead?  This generic parallel backend is preferable to the epson
backend.

> 7) Continue

It should have given you the choice of printer make at this point, or
if it autodetected it then it should have given you exactly the right
choices.

If you set LogLevel to debug in /etc/cupsd.conf, and restart CUPS, it
might give us some more information--perhaps it gets misdetected as a
PCL printer?

> 8) Now I get the model list with the following entries:
> - Generic PCL 4 Printer
> - Generic PCL 5 Printer
> - Generic PCL 5c Printer
> - Generic PCL 5e Printer
> - Generic PCL 6 / PCL XL Printer
> all from "CUPS + Gutenprint v5.0.0-rc3 (en).
>
> No specific Epson driver is offered here nor any drivers from other 
> printer vendors, but all the PPD files have been generated on installting 
> gutenprint drivers and are available 
> in: /usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint/5.0/

If all the PPDs are available here, CUPS should pick them up--it scans
all files in /usr/share/cups/model at startup.

> I remember one more thing: I had this problem before and solved it by 
> reinstalling (AFAIR I used aptitude reinstall cupsys-driver-gutenprint, 
> but could also have been dpkg --purge cupsys-driver-gutenprint ; aptitude 
> install cupsys-driver-gutenprint).

That shouldn't do anything--it just regenerates the above PPD files
and then reloads CUPS.  From
/var/lib/dpkg/info/cupsys-driver-gutenprint.postinst:

  /usr/sbin/cups-genppdconfig.5.0 -u
  /usr/sbin/cups-genppdupdate.5.0
# Restart CUPSys (to register new and updated PPDs)
  invoke-rc.d cupsys force-reload

You can run those three commands as root to see if it makes a difference.

> I can try whether this helps this time, too. But I would rather like to 
> find out the cause of the bug first. Do those PPDs have to be registered 
> with CUPS somehow? Anything I can have a look at before I try the 
> reinstall approach?

I would try the alternate backend I suggested in your step 6 above,
and you can also try the above commands as well.

> How does CUPS know where to look for PPD files? It does not seem to be set 
> in the global config files directly:

It looks in `cups-config --datadir`/model, i.e. /usr/share/cups/model.

> root at deepdance:/etc/cups -> grep -ir "/usr/share/cups" *
> ppd/EpsonStylusColor600.ppd:*StpPPDLocation:    "/usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint/5.0/C/stp-escp2-600.5.0.ppd.gz"
>
> Is this location hardcoded?

Yes, but CUPS doesn't use it.  This is used by Gutenprint to
automatically upgrade PPDs for you--this is where it will look to find
a new version.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
Roger Leigh
                Printing on GNU/Linux?  http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/
                Debian GNU/Linux        http://www.debian.org/
                GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848.  Please sign and encrypt your mail.
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