I haven't been able to get my printer working after I installed Ubuntu on my system. The strange thing is I was able to get it working briefly, when I found some previous posts describing how to change some of the permissions, but then it hasn't worked since then. I tried looking for the permissions again, to see if they had somehow gotten changed again, I'm not sure if I've found all of them from before, but I think it was /dev/lp0 (set as 770, with my user part of the group) and /usr/lib/cups/daemon/cups-lpd (set as 755). I actually don't think it's the permissions now anyway because I also tried printing something as root and that doesn't work either.

I tried looking up some info in the logs,
From the last time I tried a test print /var/log/lpr.log reads:

Sep 20 22:01:45 localhost pnm2ppa[19166]: Starting print job
Sep 20 22:01:45 localhost pnm2ppa[19166]: Printing page 1 (PixMap)
Sep 20 22:01:50 localhost pnm2ppa[19166]: Finished rendering page 1
Sep 20 22:01:50 localhost pnm2ppa[19166]: Print job completed successfully.

though it obviously wasn't successful, as nothing happened with the printer

The same job in /var/log/cups/error_log reads:

I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Adding start banner page "none" to job 15.
I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Adding end banner page "none" to job 15.
I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Job 15 queued on 'DeskJet-710C' by 'andy'.
I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops (PID 19157) for job 15.
I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Started filter /usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip (PID 19158) for job 15.
I [20/Sep/2005:22:01:45 -0600] Started backend /usr/lib/cups/backend/parallel (PID 19159) for job 15.

Any suggestions about what's going on here?

If its a parallel port printer you need to have the 'lp' module loaded (check output of 'lspci'. Do 'modprobe lp' if it is not there.

In KDE you can also increase the CUPS debugging level (Control Center -> Printers -> Print Server -> Configuration -> Logs). Not sure what Ubuntu uses.

Didn't look like lp was anywhere is lspci, I tried doing modprobe lp, and nothing happened (same with modprobe -v lp). Could I be missing the module that modprobe is supposed to load? or would I get some kind of error if that was the case.

I use GNOME, so that method of changing the debugging won't work, I didn't see anything similar in the obvious place to adjust printer settings.

Sorry, my stupid mistake. Should be lsmod, not lspci.

Check 'lsmod' again after 'modprobe lp' to see if it is in the list.

When I did lsmod I have lp, as well as parport and parport_pc, which I've read can also be issues.

You can do a crude test of the parallel port with

echo 'hello world' > /dev/lp0

which should get a reaction from the printer.

If permissions are wrong you could have all sorts of problems. I don't think printing as root will necessarily bypass these as it may be the CUPS daemon that needs access, not the user.

If you can use whatever print management tools Ubuntu provides you may be able to locate the problem by increasing the debugging level. CUPS also has a web interface at

http://localhost:631/admin

but I find the KDE printer admin more useful.

I went to the web interface and get asked for a password, tried both my user and root passwords and neither worked. When I click cancel I get a message saying "Administrative commands are disabled in the web interface for security reasons. Please use the GNOME CUPS manager (System > Administration > Printing)." All I can configure from there is the paper settings, and set drivers to use.

I still haven't found an easy way to change debugging in Gnome, but did find how to edit the configuration file to do it by hand, still all the same messages from my first post, and nothing else. Actually there was a change in behavior though, now when I do a test print it stays listed in the queue, and I have to cancel the job, but when I look at the logs, it's what I said before including "Print job completed successfully".

I tried
echo 'hello world' >dev/lp0
and got absolutely no response

I suspect a problem with the parallel port. On my box command 'dmesg | grep lp' gives following (among other stuff):

lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready

If you don't have this, or see some errors, that would be worth investigating. Also check the cable and connections. Try the printer with another OS or PC if you can.

A useful resource for parallel printers is the lp.general mailing list at www.linuxprinting.org.

We might be getting somewhere since I get different output there.

lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
lp0: ECP mode
lp0: ECP mode
lp0: ECP mode
lp0: ECP mode
lp0: ECP mode
lp0: ECP mode

I'm just starting to google to figure out what exactly this is meaning, but the difference at least gives me something to look for.

I've been able to get the same printer working when I had windows and mandriva on my old system, as well as when I boot with mepis on this one.

I got it working, by changing my parallel port mode to from ECP to normal.

Thanks for you help.

"Administrative tasks have been disabled for security reasons. Please use Menu System > Administration > Printing."

That's impossible usign KDE especially if you use a distro like Kubuntu which only has kde!!!

just do the below...