Where is printer port for a USB printer? [solved]

[banjo]

I just installed a new Epson C84 printer on my Mandy 9.1.

I used Mandrake Control Center, and it went in like hot butter.

 

 

It works fine right out of the box, but I understand that the

Epson utilities in escputils need to have the real printer

port supplied, and I cannot find it. Can anybody give me

a pointer to where USB printers get installed. Nothing

shows up in /dev/usb.

 

My laser printer, through the parallel port, is at /dev/lp0

as expected, but the USB printer location was down in

some USB directory somewhere. It flashed by too fast

for me to grab it. Dang!

 

Thanks in Advance

Linux rocks!

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Edited May 8, 2005 by banjo

[spinynorman]

Go into MCC, select Hardware, then HardDrake - most of your hardware will be displayed. If your printer is not showing, press the Options button at the bottom and select Autodetect printers. Quit HardDrake, then open it again, and the printer should now be there. Click on the printer name to show the details, including the port.

 

Mine's dev/usb/lp0... :)

[banjo]

spinynorman,

 

Thanks for the info. It worked like a champ.

I have found it right in /dev/usb/lp0 after all.

 

The issue was really one of old dogs and new tricks. I come from

the olden days of Unix when printers were passive bit-buckets that

existed because we set them up and then they were just there in /dev.

 

In this case, I had to turn the printer on before it showed up in

/dev/usb. When I turn the printer off. Zap. Gonzo again. So I guess

I still have a bunch to learn about how USB interacts with Linux.

Evidently the device files come and go based on whether or not

the device is on. That makes sense considering the hot-swap

capabilities of USB. :o

 

I must say, that I am very pleased with the way this printer went

onto the system. Mandy autodected the printer, asked me what I

wanted to do, hooked it in with gimp-print, and I was up and running.

Easier than fnWindows. I did have to tell it that I had a C82 because

of my antiquated gimp-print. But it works.

 

 

Linux rocks!

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[spinynorman]

 

My C62 works well - after I realised the man from the shop had plugged it into the RJ-45 socket...

[banjo]

RJ45 socket? I'm not sure that I could figure out how to

do that physically. How big of a hammer do you need to

jam the connector into the hole?

 

My only glitch in this thing now is that escputil is telling me that

it cannot parse the printer output when I ask for ink levels.

 

I guess the C84 is too new for this software or something.

 

Looking for a solution to that issue.

 

Do you know if it is possible to use *both* the usb and the

parallel port on the printer? I have a Win98 sitting here with a

parallel cable that I could hook to it and then just do the printer

maintenance from there. My Lexmark laser works that way.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[spinynorman]

For ink levels, I use mtink, which is under Configuration - Printing. There are some notes at www.linuxprinting.org about escputil and the C84.

 

Can't help you with the usb/parallel port problem - I'm not a techie, just work things out by trial and error... :)

[banjo]

I tried Mtink and it just reports errors communicating with the printer.

 

Thanks for all the help anyway. If I manage to fix this I will report back

to this thread what I did. There is a patch available to fix the escputil

problem, but it is for 4.2.6 and I have 4.2.5. I also have no idea what

to do with the "patch" LOL. It is a .bin file, whatever that means. Do you

run it? or copy it someplace? What is a "patch" in Linux?

 

For now, I have a working printer, and this other stuff is optional.

The printer will report to me when a cartridge is low, and I can figure

out which cartridge it is using the buttons on the front panel of the printer.

 

Linux rocks!

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[spinynorman]

There is a patch available to fix the escputil

problem, but it is for 4.2.6 and I have 4.2.5. I also have no idea what

to do with the "patch" LOL.

Use 'man patch' to find out about the patch command. If you use the verbose parameter, you will see what's going on. You also have the option to create a backup in case something goes wrong.

 

If it works, it should fix escputil and mtink. B)

[banjo]

In case anyone is still interested in this thread I thought

that I would post my fix for this problem. I finally did

get escputil to read my C84 printer and report the ink levels,

and here is what I did.

 

First I read as much as I could online about escputil and

mtink and ttink to find out what was going on. According

to the chat boards, this is a known problem that is fixed

in version 4.2.7 of the gimp-print. I did not want to attempt

an upgrade to all of gimp-print in order to fix this one

problem because everything else seems to work fine and I don't

want it to stop working enitrely from a mismatch ( I have

read such horror stories on the web). After all, my

Mandy 9.1 is getting a bit old now (2 years!).

 

Finally I downloaded the source code for gimp-print 4.2.7

from sourceforge and took a look at it. It turns out that

escputil is pretty much a stand-alone program that rides

along with the rest of gimp-print. It would be nice if

this program were available separately.

 

I compiled escputil manually using the command:

 

> gcc escputil.c -o escputil

 

(I come from the era of iron men and wooden boats;

I don't need no stinkin' makefile ).

 

After some minor modifications that allowed the compiler

to find the appropriate include files and get around some

minor compile errors, it compiled fine. It runs and works

against my C84.

 

The permissions for /dev/usb/lp0 are crw-rw----, so only

root has permission to write to the device. I cannot figure

out how to change the permissions on this file since it

comes and goes automatically when the printer is turned

on and off. So I will simply run the program as root.

 

To "install" my version (hack) of escputil I put a shell

script wrapper around it called "checkprinterink" which

contains the following:

 

#!/bin/sh

/usr/local/bin/escputil -i -u -r /dev/usb/lp0

 

I copied the script and my new escputil binary into

/usr/local/bin. To use it I just su to root and type:

 

# checkprinterink

 

and it works.

 

I realize that this is a terrible hack, but short of

diving into some serious upgrades to my system, I don't

know how else to fix this. If I decide that I need to

perform any of the other utility functions that are

provided by escputil I will create new scripts to run

my program and ensure that I have the switches correct.

 

I did not have to touch any of the installed software

to make this work. It is isolated in /usr/local/bin

whereas the original escputil is in /usr/bin.

 

I will not distribute this because it is a hack and

not suitable for public consumption. However, if you

want to try this yourself, feel free. I am probably

the only Linux hack on the planet who is too stubborn

to do a proper upgrade.

 

Can you imagine even attempting to do something like

this in fnWindows?

 

Linux rocks!

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~