CUPS in Slack 12.1 : 'foomatic failed'
 

Hallo all,

I'm a newbie to slackware (a week at most), and i've managed to pick up the basics of Linux from playing around with a Knoppix distro on the systems, but i'm trying to get my desktop set up with a proper system.

I'm running Slackware 12.1.

Hardware:
AMD64 1.99GHz processor
1 gig RAM
1.5 TB Seagate SATA-3.0 Hard-drive

Have no pity, even though it's an Emachine D-series.

My problem is that CUPS continues to fall down and go boom every time I try to print. I'm trying to send it to a Konica Minolta PagePro 1350W, through a USB port on the box itself, and not through a different system.

When I set it up in CUPS, everything goes smoothly. But when i click the 'print test page' button, it says the job's failed and i get
as the status. Currently, I'm getting a bit annoyed.

Please note that I've been using Windoze for most of my computing life, so go easy on me. Explanations of what exactly i'm to do would be most useful, as I'm always looking for more pointers.

My guess is you don't have an appropriate driver for that printer.

So I suggest you try this:

1) Using Firefox, go to this page
2) Near the bottom of the page choose "Minolta PagePro 1350W" in the drop-down list, then hit the "Generate PPD file" button next to it.
3) When asked choose "Save file". Check in Firefox menu (Edit => Preferences ==> "Save files to") the location where the file has been saved.
4) Check that you printer is up and connected to the computer
5) type localhost:631 in Firefox's address bar to configure CUPS
6) Choose "Add Printer"
6) Choose e.g. Minolta as name for the printer-- you may leave alone the two other fields, then hit Continue.
7) On the next page choose your device on the drop-down list (should be USB something)
8) As no driver for your printer is available in the distribution, you'll provide the file you downloaded at step #3 instead. So click Browse and go to the location where you saved the file downloaded at step #3 , highlight the file's name (<something>.ppd) and hit Open, then hit Add Printer.
9) Upon request, give the credentials needed to continue : user root, password <root_password>
10) Then you should be asked to setup printer options. Usually, only Paper Size matters. Choose it then hit Set Printer Options.
11) If all did go as expected you should be able to print a test page.

Didier, thanks, but I'm afraid that's what I did before.
However, at no point did it ask me for the root password. Might be because I added myself
to the proper group.

It didn't work this time either, I'm afraid.

Seems strange. I added all "power" groups to a regular user account and still, I can't add or delete a printer if I don't give root's credentials.
So may be another software you have installed messed up your files permissions ??
If you are sure you followed all installation steps, would you mind removing then re-installing all cups-related packages, as shown in the Slackware Package Browser ? If it won't help, at least it won't hurt ;)
PS when you re-install the packages, take cups-1.3.9 as it is an official upgrade.
PS2 Hope you did install foomatic-filters package. If missing, this could be another explanation of the issue ??