USB Epson AcuLaser C900 (AL-C900) printer detected but doesn't print

[Zarius]

Binary package hint: cupsys

Running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron updated as at today (2008/10/04). CUPS 1.3.7-1ubuntu3.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Boot up and log into computer.
2) Plug Epson AcuLaser C900 into computer via USB.
3) Turn on printer.

Expected result:
It was expected that the printer would be auto-detected and setup ready to go.

Actual result:
Printer was auto-detected and setup in CUPS however it did not print. It was set up as a "EPSON AL-C900" using the "EPSON AL-C1900 PS3 v3011.106" driver. The device URI was set as "usb://EPSON/AL-C900". Printing a page from either an external program (gedit - Text Editor) or a test page from the CUPS web interface seemed to work from the computer's point of view (jobs show up as successful) however the printer did not react.

Work-around:
http://alc900-cups.sourceforge.net/ details how to setup this printer. Apparently it needs a special backend and device URI - "alc900://usblp0/EPSON/AL-C900". I downloaded the package from their sourceforge page, extracted it & ran install.sh (after making sure the prerequisite packages were installed (foomatic-filters, cups (or cupsys), a2ps, psutils, ghostscript). It complained about a missing gtk1.2 package but otherwise worked ok. I needed to set up a new printer (or modify the existing printer) to use the correct device and driver - device: alc900-usblp0 - driver: selected a PPD file "/usr/share/cups/model/Epson/Epson-AcuLaser_C900-alc900.ppd". Printing from external programs & the test page now worked.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

That's a bug in the Plug 'n Print detection, it should not match the incorrect AL-C1900 PS3 driver for your Epson AcuLaser C900 printer.

Furthermore if you want this printer driver to be installed automatically in future versions of Ubuntu you should ask the author of the sourceforge project to provide a distribution independent driver package as described here: http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/WritingAndPackagingPrinterDrivers, so automatic download of this printer driver becomes possible as already implemented by this specification: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/printerdriverautodownload since Ubuntu Intrepid.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Problem is that there is no suitable free software printer driver for this printer which we can ship with Ubuntu.

At least current Ubuntu does not blindly set up a print queue with a wrong driver, but pops up system-config-printer for manual driver selection. So from the hal-cups-utils side this is fixed.