What to do when backend/usb doesn't see a printer?

Carl Brewer carl at aboc.net.au
Fri Nov 21 17:48:00 PST 2008


I have an Epson TM-U220B printer I'm trying to get working with CUPS on a CentOS/RHEL system (have used 1.3.9, now trying 1.4beta)
After upgrading the kernel the USB device shows up :

in /proc/bus/usb/devices :

T:  Bus=04 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=04b8 ProdID=0202 Rev= 2.00
S:  Manufacturer=EPSON
S:  Product=EPSON UB-U02III
S:  SerialNumber=20040510165427660MR2J
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr= 10mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=02 Driver=usblp
E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=   8 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms

And /dev/usb/lp0 exists, I can cat to it and the printer prints (ASCII, but that's all I want it to do anyway)

But CUPS refuses to see it.  If I run backend/usb nothing comes back.  If I plug in an Epson Stylus C90 I get a repsonse from backend/usb and it shows up in the devices menu etc just fine, so pretty-much everything else is ok.

HAL may be the problem? Or test1284? There's an old hal in /usr/lib/cups/backend that seems to have come from something other than CUPS?

backend]# ./test1284 /dev/usb/lp0
/dev/usb/lp0:
    device_id=""
    make_model=""
    uri=""

For the Stylus C90 test1284 works just fine :

backend]# ./test1284 /dev/usb/lp1
/dev/usb/lp1:
    device_id="MFG:EPSON;CMD:ESCPL2,BDC,D4,D4PX;MDL:Stylus C90;CLS:PRINTER;DES:EPSON Stylus C90;��"
    make_model="EPSON Stylus C90"
    uri="test://EPSON/Stylus%20C90"

I can get the printer working with LPRng with a one liner :
lp:device=/dev/usb/lp0:tc=.common

Can anyone here make any suggestions as to what to do to get the printer to be able to be controlled by CUPS? The server wants to use some other printers as well that CUPS will be very good for, but I want to use this receipt printer on it without having to use LPRng etc, and I just want it to work as a raw ASCII printer.










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