Printer troubleshooting

Dye-Sublimation Photo Printers and Linux

Informative read about Dye-Sublimation Photo Printers and Linux can be found at Peachy Photos Blog

Printing on Linux with USB Printers

If your printer is connected via USB, you’ll need local drivers for it to work.

In many cases, there may not be an official driver provided by the manufacturer.

Gutenprint Drivers

The OpenSource Gutenprint project provides support for a wide range of printers and is often the best option when no vendor drivers are available.

  • Project website: Gutenprint
  • Supported printers: Hundreds of models across multiple brands

Recommendation: Compile and install the latest Gutenprint driver from source to ensure your printer drivers are fully up to date.

Building the Latest Gutenprint on Linux

A detailed guide for compiling the latest Gutenprint driver can be found here: Building Modern Gutenprint

Special printer specific notes

Canon Selphy CP1300/CP1500

  • make sure using latest firmware on your Canon Selphy

How to administer CUPS remotely using the web interface?

By default the CUPS webinterface can only be accessed via http://localhost:631 from your local machine.

To remote access CUPS from other clients you need to run the following commands:

sudo cupsctl --remote-any
sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

Printing Fails

If printing fails, make sure a default printer is defined. You can check or set it using:

lpoptions

If needed, you can specify the printer directly in the print command:

lp -d <Printer_Name> <file_to_print>

or using lpr:

lpr -P <Printer_Name> <file_to_print>

Make sure www-data user can print

Sometimes, the web server user (www-data) does not have permission to print. You can fix this by adding www-data to the lp or lpadmin group (depending on your system):

sudo usermod -aG lp,www-data

After that, you need to reboot once to apply.

Tips:

  • Replace <Printer_Name> with the exact name of your printer (use lpstat -p to list printers).
  • Ensure the printer is online and connected.
  • For network printers, make sure the hostname or IP is correct.
  • Replace <file_to_print> with %s if adding your print command to your Photobooth configuration.