It might be a stupid newbie question. But I'm wondering how just changing the USB cable for my printer can cause it no longer works! :-(

When I first install my SUSE Linux, it detected my HP 825C printer and everything went ok. But some days ago I had to remove the cable because I found out it was not the printer cable, but a HP-USB cable for scanners O;-D And it had being working really fine... but then I had to use it for the scanner... so I found the original USB for printer and replace it.

Guess what? Since then, printer no longer worked nor in Windows nor in Linux. Both systems give no error, send the printworks to the printer queue normally, but printer seems not to receive them, because it shows no activity at all... :-(

I'm wondering... must I reinstall printer because of cable replacement? How can it be accomplished? I tried thru printer manager in SUSE's KDE chosing "usb printer #2" and same controllers but the result is just the same.



Thanks in advance!

Have you checked that the cable is not broken? USB cables don't include, as far as I understand, any "high" technology, just a bunch of wires and connectors at both ends, and those "special" cables that work for cameras, printers, scanners etc. are simply formed (in the other end) so that it fits into the camera/printer/scanner port and not much else, to make sure even non-computer-oriented people know how to get them plugged in (the same reason why nowadays you can't usually put a component or a cable into a wrong place or wrong way in your computer even if you didn't know how you put it in). I'd first suspect the cable is broken, but if it works, then it's weird.

In SuSE I guess you use Yast or some other controlling tool to remove the printer from the list. You don't need to, or cannot, remove the drivers (like you did in Windows) because you're most probably using CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) which holds quite a lot of drivers right out of the box; you simply configure a printer to use one.