These are my specs:
several Puppy distros from last few years, live CD
CUPS
HP F340 Deskjet all-in-one printer, local USB

This is what I am trying to do:
Print test page.

This is my error:
No reaction at all from printer but "job completed" in CUPS.

There was no F-series driver in the driver list.

Please help.

Thanks.

This likely signifies an incorrect driver in use. You're using a Live CD, so no opportunity to install a driver. With a full install it would be possible to install HPLIP and gain the required support for this model

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-i..._devices/index

More specific info for the distro you're using...
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Printing
General information...
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ComponentHowTo

Thanks for the reply.

This page didn't open for me:
https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-i..._devices/index

This page has an empty PPD file of 0 bytes:
http://openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-deskjet_f340

Even with the PPD driver, you said that it's of no use with a live CD. That seems like a bad design. That would mean that I have to find a distro with that PPD already in the live CD, information which might be hard to find.

Does anyone know how to add a driver to CUPS in a live CD environment?

Google 'HPLIP' and you'll find the page you need. (I have no idea why you couldn't navigate to it.) I do know that the F340 model is listed as follows...

A PPD file is not a driver, it's just a postscript printer description file (that describes the required filtering processes and capabilities of a printer). You need to install the HPLIP package (which includes HP printer/scanner drivers (filters), PPDs, and support libraries).

The required package(s) would need to be added before burning the ISO ie by the creator of the Live CD.

Working with a live CD you are at the mercy of the people who made the CD. If a driver isn't there and they made no provisions to merge the read only file system on the CD and a read-write fs you are out of luck. It is not bad design, simply the choice of the designers. You have a couple of choices it seems to me. You can install the CD system to your hard drive or you can build your own live cd with the drivers you need. In the first case, if it is actually an OS you can have a multi-boot setup which is probably not what you want. In the second case it will take some work and some learning, but it is certainly possible. You could base yours on theirs but have the added drivers you want. Is it worth the effort? Only you can answer that question.
I'm sure there are tutorials online - I haven't looked. A few years ago I had a book "Live Linux CDs" by Christopher Negus (Prentice Hall). It may be available by now online for free, I don't know. It may also be out of date, but something like that is a place to start.

Can you not use a live USB instead? Make an iso file from the CD and then a bootable USB from the iso. Then add the necessary software: HPLIP (if not present) and the necessary PPD.

Sorry, thanks for the distinction.

I know everything is a compromise but this compromise sometimes means that using a new printer requires getting a whole new OS. I was surprised there was no way at all to tell the OS of the change.

I could but I would rather use a plug-n-play live CD so I started a new thread with the different question of what distro does that.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ip-4175618318/

Did you try power cycling the printer (turning off and then on again) after printing the job in CUPS. I have to do that with my Samsung laser printer. Still don't know why but print jobs get stuck in the queue unless I do this.

@tofino_surfer: Is this a USB-connected printer? If so, there’s a long-standing bug report that may be of interest to you
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ps/+bug/872483

tofino_surfer said:
Yes.

Ferrari said
This is wrong, for the OP problem anyway. Artfulpup 17 live cd printed after I installed the 3 "EXE" HPLIP packages from the repo and then the "f"-series drivers appeared in the CUPS list. I don't know why Racy and other Puppy distros didn't do this with their available repo packages, from what I could tell.

Solved, but I don't see a button to mark as solved.

This reads like you installed it (as opposed to running live)?