CUPS alternative

dext · 2023-03-24 20:15:09

I have a working network printer, on Linux it suddenly stopped working. No error given, CUPS logs are empty, just doesn't work, what's the next step? - rhetorical question.

This has been a printing reality for the last 20 years of CUPS that I know. Is there an alternative? I'm getting desperate, sometimes being able to print is absolutely critical for me. I already payed for Brother printer with built-in print server to limit the possible break points as much as possible.

I don't know, maybe someone knows a printer, which I can login to over http and upload PDF-s to print? Money is no question, I just need to be able to print reliably, or at minimum get errors when it doesn't work.

This time, my girlfriend's work Windows laptop saved us, but from my experience in general Windows is a lot worse (my gaming Windows can't print at all). I have never heard of MAC users having any issues. If that's true, no kidding, I'd just buy used Mini, I just need this solved.

For outside-the-box ideas: I'm printing tickets, so basically QR's or barcodes. So one solution could be to just carry 2 phones as a redundancy, but for my piece of mind, nothing beats paper.

Last edited by dext (2023-03-24 20:16:38)

Trilby · 2023-03-24 20:23:44

I haven't used cups in ages. With (most) Brother printers, and likely a range of other manufacturers, you can just send a pdf directly. My `print` script:

nc brother 9100 < $1

(edit: "brother" is defined in /etc/hosts to point to the IP address of the printer in my network).

This will fail on the rare occasion with certain "exotic" pdfs. I haven't bothered to figure out what attribute of pdfs actually fails as all of my own print just fine.

Also if you are just printing QRs or barcodes, you could just get a Zebra printer for which you just send simple commands via usb to generate a qr or barcode (or a range of other content) - but not pdfs or documents.

Last edited by Trilby (2023-03-24 20:24:46)

seth · 2023-03-24 21:31:26

I have never heard of MAC users having any issues. If that's true, no kidding, I'd just buy used Mini, I just need this solved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUPS

Developer(s) Apple Inc.

CUPS logs are empty, just doesn't work, what's the next step?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/Troubleshooting
With brother printers, it's usually some filter because of an i386 driver or missing dependency (gs, which …) in the AUR package

I already payed for Brother printer with built-in print server

So why are you bothering with cups/local print server at all??? (Also see Trilby's post)

dext · 2023-03-26 13:20:36

Thank you, all I need is to print PDFs, sometimes pictures, so this sounds like a great idea.

It doesn't work for me though. Netcat hangs and printer prints blank pages looks like to infinity:

nc "192.168.13.7" 9100 < tmp/test.pdf

My netcat: extra/gnu-netcat 0.7.1-9

My printer: Brother DCP-L2530DW

I could only find very little resources about this method. Any recommendations what to look for to help me figure this out?

Why am I using CUPS? It's a default. Add printer, click next, click next and it works - most of the time.

seth · 2023-03-26 13:25:59

nmap 192.168.13.7

Edit: According to https://support.brother.com/g/b/spec.as … l2530dw_eu 9100 should™ be open and should™ work, but you may have to configure/enable that on the printer?

Last edited by seth (2023-03-26 13:28:37)

dext · 2023-03-26 13:31:04

PORT     STATE SERVICE
80/tcp   open  http
443/tcp  open  https
515/tcp  open  printer
631/tcp  open  ipp
9100/tcp open  jetdirect

It kind of works, just prints multiple empty pages. I've tried couple of PDFs.

seth · 2023-03-26 13:54:17

Not really sure what to make out of

Emulation : PCL6, BR-Script3, PDF Version 1.7

Did you try /usr/share/cups/data/default-testpage.pdf (which is PDF 1.5)?

Also there's an IPP server.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/P … k_printers
Also see the note in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS#Network_2

Trilby · 2023-03-26 16:01:02

And does the page size of the pdf you are sending to the printer exactly match the paper that the printer has and is set to use? This is one exception that I had worked around with my script for a while - a lot of scientific journal article pdfs are A4 size while I have a US-Letter sized printer (these can look very similar, but are different dimensions). I used `gs` to convert any A4 documents to US-Letter size before sending them to the printer.

I also believe the pdfs that failed to print this way had raster images. I think some pdfs with images worked though these may have been just vector images (e.g., plots / graphs), but I'm pretty sure all the ones that failed had raster images / photos. I never found a work around for this.

But note that the more work-arounds one adds to the script that just sends pdf data directly to the printer, the closer one comes to reinventing CUPS. That's what CUPS is really for.

Arch Linux

#1 2023-03-24 20:15:09

CUPS alternative

#2 2023-03-24 20:23:44

Re: CUPS alternative

#3 2023-03-24 21:31:26

Re: CUPS alternative

#4 2023-03-26 13:20:36

Re: CUPS alternative

#5 2023-03-26 13:25:59

Re: CUPS alternative

#6 2023-03-26 13:31:04

Re: CUPS alternative

#7 2023-03-26 13:54:17

Re: CUPS alternative

#8 2023-03-26 16:01:02

Re: CUPS alternative

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