Can someone point me to setting up printers on Slackware.

I have actually printed in the past, but now I find it
totally alien.

I have two printers connected to my computer,
HP845C Destjet, also called C8943A
Canon PIXMA MP210

I can find no documentation whatever that gives me
anything useable for figuring out printing.

I can't find anything that tells me how to figure
out what my system recognizes for printers.

Everything I look at is just a puzzle, pretending
to be instructions.

Example: Looking at the slackware documentation

http://docs.slackware.com/slackbookrinting

I determined I have cups installed by doing:
It says that I have cups-1.5.4-x86_64-2

I select "printing" from my list of GUI choices in Xfce
and I get an interface that tells me "printing service
is not available, Start the service on this computer
or connect to another server".

two targets are under that above instruction,
Start Service
Connect

Start service: does nothing.
Connect: tells me CUPS server: localhost
and has a target to "Connect" that server,
when clicked it tells me CUPS server error
failed to connect to server.

There is also a help target which when clicked
tells me that CUPS service is stopped, and to
correct this I should choose
System>Administration>Services and from the
main menu look for cups service.

I click "System" on my GUI menu, but it has
no "Administration" option.

There is an option "Manage printing", but it just
loads firefox and firefox looks for: http://localhost:631/
Can't find it, and I am stuck there.

It would be nice if I could find what my computer
sees connected as printers, things like that.

I have tried some things like:

cat thesis.txt | lpr

or,

lpr -l60 thesis.txt | lpr

Does this help?

http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...slackware:cups

1 members found this post helpful.

For the HP printer, use HPLIP to configure it. HPLIP is included in Slackware.

The CLI setup utility is hp-setup. See

The GUI client is hp-toolbox, which is also included in a full Slackware install. If you are using KDE, it might appear on the menu as HP Device Manager.

The Open Printing Database has this to say about the Canon.

I too have been left scratching my head in utter perplexity with Linux printing. CUPS, queues, Samba printer shares? Holy crap I wanted to throw every piece of electrical equipment out the window the day I had to sort that out.

Anyway, back to your immediate problem: it's likely the CUPS service is not running. You can check as follows:

If the executable bit is not set (if you don't see the x in rwxr-xr-x) then do the following to set it:

Now start the service:

That should get you at least part of the way to solving your problem.

Try running 'lpstat -t' in a terminal window.
e.g.
As you cannot connect to http://localhost:631, I suspect that the CUPS daemon is not running.
Without the CUPS daemon running,

1 members found this post helpful.

There's also these articles on SlackDocs Wiki:

http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:net...e_print_server
http://docs.slackware.com/slackbookrinting

Progress so far:


I found that the cups was not executable with:
ls -la /etc/rc.d/rc.cups

Made it executable then Started it with:
/etc/rc.d/rc.cups start

Now system recognizes one of my printers,
choosing "printing" from my gui menu it
gives a display that shows picture of a
printer and the name:

Deskjet_845C

and it says Connected to localhost.

So it does find the HP printer, but not
the Canon.

Now I still can't print anything. Looking
at my previous notes it says I used to
print with commands like:

lpr printing.ins
lpr printing.ins > /dev/lp

But here is my result trying those commands:

el@queen:/h/ins$ lpr printing.ins
lpr: Error - no default destination available.

el@queen:/h/ins$ lpr printing.ins > /dev/lp
bash: /dev/lp: Permission denied

switched to root and got this:
root@queen:/h/ins# lpr printing.ins > /dev/lp
lpr: Error - no default destination available.

also tried
cat printing.ins > /dev/lp
bash: /dev/lp: Permission denied


tried lpstat -t

el@queen:/h/ins$ lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
device for DeskJet_845C: hp:/usb/DeskJet_845C?serial=TH19D1C55BSX
DeskJet_845C accepting requests since Sun 10 May 2015 08:50:29 AM PDT
printer DeskJet_845C is idle. enabled since Sun 10 May 2015 08:50:29 AM PDT

..

It's all simple if a bit confusing to set up. Some of this was already mentioned.

1. Forget the GUI tools in your DE/WM, and the tedious old fashioned CLI printing tools.
2. Make sure your user is a member of the "lp" group (and "scanner" if any printer has scanning capability).
3. Check that you installed hplip-3.13.10 (part of Slackware full install).
4. Make sure you installed CUPS and that /etc/rc.d/rc.cups is executable.
5. Perform a clean reboot, just in case you changed any of the above. hplip sometimes doesn't see cups changes.
6. open a CLI and run "hp-setup" a GUI should pop up. Click away to set up your deskjet 845c on USB.
7. You should now have a HP icon in your DE GUI task bar for printer status, etc. Try printing a test page. Note: If you can't complete hp-setup as a regular user (since you will need root access to make changes), try:
   Code:

   xhost +local:root > /dev/null
   su -
   hp-setup

8. Now for the Canon PIXMA MP210 (connected, power on): open firefox (or other browser), go to http://localhost:631/admin and click on "Add Printer." CUPS will scan and find any printes on USB posts; follow the prompts to add the MP210. It's in the list of CUPS printers.

I usually stick with HP printers since HPLIP is so handy and thus have not had any significant printer set up issues since, say, Slackware-12 (when did hplip 1st get added?). The Canon Pixma printers should have good support as well. Currently I have the following printers set up:

• HP Lasjerjet MP1212nf MFP (network wired, print, scan, fax)
• HP Officejet Pro 8620 (network wifi, print, scan/fax disabled)
• HP Photosmart 8250 (usb)

The 2 network printers are accessible from any computer on my local network. Good luck and have fun!

The cannon should work, just select the MP220 drivers:
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/...on-PIXMA_MP210

I have written a small how-to that could adapt to your Canon printer.

With the excellent help so far, I have the hp printer now
cooperating. tomorrow I will give the Canon a try.

No one has mentioned the email to root. It also contains printing configuration/use for the first time installer. Just login as root and type 'mail' and it will be available for your perusal.
john

It appears that you have a 64-bit version of Slackware 14.1 running.

Just a heads up that the Linux driver package for the PIXMA MP210 (tarball 29753.tgz) that I downloaded from here http://www.canon-europe.com/support/...xma_mp210.aspx contains binaries compiled for 32-bit operation.

If you have a pure 64-bit install, you will likely need to also install, at a minimum, 32-bit versions of cups-compat32 and glibc-solibs.
For cups-compat32-1.5.4-x86_64-3compat32.txz http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/pe...32/a-compat32/
For gli8bc-solibs-2.17_multilib-x86_64-10alien.txz http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/pe...multilib/14.1/

All thanks to Alien Bob.

Yes, it looks like my system has choked on the drivers
for the 32 bit system.

I downloaded the two packages. I am wondering if my
present setup of the Canon will work if I just install
those packages, or if I will have to once again go
through the Canon install. Any thoughts on that.

It is going to take some time for me to work up the
nerve to take this any further. Maybe I can get to
it tonight.

I could make my new Canon iP3600 printable on Slackware 14.1 and worked. Recognising the printer and finding and installing the driver worked automatically.