I have finally switched over my printer from the old PC tonight, it installed ok apparently using Control Centre (in Fluxbox), however, all attempts at printing are met with a stony silence from the printer. Yes, it is switched on!

The only clue I have is this error message when I take a peek at printer properties: Option 'printer-resolution' has value '(unknown IPP tag)' and cannot be edited.

Can anyone help me to decipher this message please?

almost all the printers I have set up have displayed that message in system-config-printer. I do not think it is anything to really worry about.
most of the time the printer is found and (as long as I have the right driver) works fine. the best / longest meathod of setup on my networked printers is to use lpd://server iP/queue name. for usb printers, I try to use the same port, and as long as I have the right driver it works.
Sorry I cannot really provide more details, it is kind of hit and miss depending on the manufacturer of the printer and the model of the printer.

Thanks for your reply Dave. My printer is an old Epson Stylus Photo R300 connected via usb. I have not had any trouble getting it to work before with numerous different distros, and this time it appeared to identify and install the correct driver for it, but absolutely no response from the printer. I know it works still as when I switched it on it went through the usual warm up routine. The only thing that is different in this case it that it is connected through a powered hub, as the cable is not long enough to reach directly, though I can't see why that should affect it.

Silly question: is the cups service running?

BitJam wrote:Silly question: is the cups service running?

Apologies for the delay - I have been otherwise occupied...

Not a silly question at all, but here is one for you, how do I tell if the cups service is running please?

pstree ot htop in a terminal should show you.

anticapitalista wrote:pstree ot htop in a terminal should show you.

That command in a terminal just shows me a list of arguments for the command, not sure what argument I should use?

Thanks Anti, I'm off to bed, will return here on Monday.

I found the above line in my output, so I assume that cups is running?

Yes, cups is running so you could try to use cups to configure your printer:(which I probably should have suggested first).

Unfortunately a quick Google(cups Epson Stylus Photo R300) shows that many other people have the same problem. I didn't see a solution in the top few results but maybe there is one buried further down.

Thanks BitJam, I may well have a go at that. What I can't understand, is why it seems that it is only in AntiX that the printer won't print. I have had the printer for years, and never have had problems until now, the most recent distro was CrunchBang, but there have been many, many others!

If you Google(cups Epson Stylus Photo R300) you will see that this is a recent issue. The reason you have the problem on antiX and not other distros is because antiX is using more recent software and only recent software has the bug. Everyone (almost) is reporting that it used to work and then after a recent upgrade it stopped working.

Hey Rayburn

Was also having local printer setup problems.

I have it working now.

Solution that worked for me

Connected a similar ( newer ) printer

Those drivers took fine,

worked just as well for the old one

bbwf wrote:Hey Rayburn

Was also having local printer setup problems.

I have it working now.

Solution that worked for me

Connected a similar ( newer ) printer

Those drivers took fine,

worked just as well for the old one

Thanks for that. I'd rather not have to buy a new printer just yet though! It is more an inconvenience than a deal breaker, as I can still use the printer via the other computer, and they are networked.

Get version 1.4.4 of these three packages from debian stable (cups, cups-client, cups-common), and force downgrade cups from 1.4.8. This should work for you.