I'm trying to print from antiX 13.2 (Leafpad, if it makes a difference) to a BJC-4300 that's attached to my MEPIS 11 system. I know the printer works, I can print to it from the MEPIS machine without a problem, and can print from two other MEPIS systems in the house, but when I try to print from my antiX system I'm asked for authentication -- and my username/password for antiX, or MEPIS, or either root doesn't unlock printing. What am I doing wrong?

this crops up for some systems. try this. add your username to the"lpadmin" group in / etc / group. You will need to edit this file as root. I have to do this for my brother printer.

Several other people have solved similar problems by editing / etc/cups/printers.conf:


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url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/164111/cups-is-always-asking-for-password-when-printing-on-a-certain-printer"
linktext was:"Cups is always asking for password when printing on a certain printer"
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url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/57493/save-print-server-authentication-credentials"
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I'm getting ready to setup a wifi printer for a friend today with AntiX 13. This helps me a lot.

dolphin_oracle wrote:this crops up for some systems. try this. add your username to the"lpadmin" group in / etc / group. You will need to edit this file as root. I have to do this for my brother printer.

Did this, nothing changed (do I have to restart, or restart cups?).

BitJam wrote:Several other people have solved similar problems by editing / etc/cups/printers.conf:


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/164111/cups-is-always-asking-for-password-when-printing-on-a-certain-printer"
linktext was:"Cups is always asking for password when printing on a certain printer"
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========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/57493/save-print-server-authentication-credentials"
linktext was:"Save print server authentication credentials"
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The second one looks like a simple, permanent solution -- turn off the authentication requirement for printing. However, for two jobs already in queue (one from last week!), attempting to authenticate or release still results in a return to"held for authentication" status after a minute or so. This also happens with a new job, which also asked me for authentication on starting the print process even after commenting out the authentication line in (/)etc/cups/printers.conf. I can see the printer status and queue, just apparently can't release a job. Neither can root, it seems.

Edit to add: I set up the printer using the Control Centre tool; I've never had good results using the browser interface for cups or Samba.

@Silent Observer: once your user name is added to lpadmin, you should be able to use your regular user account to authenticate and release or delete the old jobs. At least I think you can. I usually don't get that far before I need to add myself to the lpadmin group. I don't remember if I restarted cups or not, but a reboot can't hurt.

@afab4 -- my network router assigns IP addresses to the various machines, and doesn't change them once assigned unless the router goes down and one or more computers is restarted at the same time, which could cause the restarted machines to get different intra-network addresses; that would normally only happen during a power outage. I'd prefer not to try to mess with assigning genuine static IPs, since I'd then have to reconfigure every machine in the network (three that matter and a fourth that will) to print to that static IP instead of using discovered printers (which is working fine from two MEPIS 11 systems).

As I noted above, I've never gotten anything good from trying to use the browser interface to CUPS, regardless how well it works for you. I'd question what the point is of having the GUI tools if every time something doesn't work, the advice is to abandon them.

@D.O. -- after commenting out the"authenticate" line in (/)etc/cups/printers.conf I shouldn't have to authenticate at all, if I read the linked page correctly. Failing that, I've tried both my regular user information and that for root without success, and since the other MEPIS systems can print, I apparently have the printer share correctly set up on the MEPIS host (i.e. not requiring authentication there).

Hmmm. Just rechecking, there's an interesting (if not promising) development -- stopped cups service (as su,"service cups stop"), edited the printers.conf file above, found the authenticate line uncommented. Commented it again, restarted cups -- and the authentication line came back (and yes, I had root privilege when doing this -- running a rox file window started from a terminal as su, opening the file from the rox window should have me editing as su, else I'd get an error message when I try to save, right?). Deleted the line by the same procedure (well, actually cut it to the clipboard, just in case); it came back. Verified I'm in the lpadmin group -- yep. Looked over printer properties from the"printer setup" GUI tool, says it's not set to authenticate; changing it makes no difference. By this time I've tried my regular username and password, my username and password on the host machine, and root and root password (for my own convenience, same password on both systems).

Sigh. Attempting to confirm if it's system related, I tried setting up that same printer from the Gateway laptop (300 MHz Pentium II, 288 MiB RAM) while on wired connection, and (unlike on my Athlon XP 2000+ system) I don't even have a Canon option to install the driver (cups + Gutenprint). I don't recall having to download Gutenprint on the Athlon XP -- I thought it was included, since it covers so many printers. I shouldn't have to install GIMP (which is far beyond what this laptop can handle) to get Gutenprint, should I?

Edit: Okay,fround printer-driver-gutenprint in the repos; installed that, was able to set up the printer with the lookup tool, and now get exactly the same behavior as on the Athlon XP system (though I also seeming misclicked something and no longer have the"edit as root" option at the top of the right-click menu for printers.conf and other .conf files).

Further edit: Got the"edit as root" fixed (and learned a new bit about Rox file manager). Still trying to get printing figured out. Would log files or similar help?