How to install and configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db)?

This is a small guide on How to install configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db)?.We will be using cups, cups-client and foomatic-db for this purpose. Foomatic is a database-driven system for integrating free software printer drivers with common spoolers under Unix. How to install and configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db) - blackMORE OpsIt supports CUPS, LPRng, LPD, GNUlpr, Solaris LP, PPR, PDQ, CPS, and direct printing with every free software printer driver known to us and every printer known to work with these drivers. If you’re not familiar with read it from the Linux Foundation

How to install configure printers on Linux

Following hardware’s are proven to be working with cups and foomatic-db.

Supported Hardware’s:

  1. Local Printers:
    1. HP Printer (HPLIP)—– All HP series
    2. Canon MP270 series (Canon MP270 series) — All Canon series
    3. HP Fax (HPLIP)
  2. Network Printers:
    1. Internet Printing Protocol (http)
    2. Internet Printing Protocol (ipps)
    3. Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)
    4. AppSocket/HP JetDirect
    5. Internet Printing Protocol (https)
    6. LPD/LPR Host or Printer
    7. Windows Printer via SAMBA

Install required packages

In here we install required packages and their dependencies using apt-get or aptitude

 apt-get install cups cups-client "foomatic-db"

How to install and configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db) - install cups and foomatic-db - blackMORE Ops

Add user to lpadmin group

Now we add root or any other user to lpadmin group. lpadmin group owns printing preferences.

 adduser root lpadmin

Output

 Adding user `root' to group `lpadmin' ...
 Adding user root to group lpadmin
 Done.

How to install and configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db) - adduser - blackMORE Ops

root mean your system account, if your account is with different name, type different name. For example, If your username is userX do this:

adduser userX lpadmin

Output

 Adding user `userX' to group `lpadmin' ...
 Adding user userX to group lpadmin
 Done.

Restart cups and samba service

Now wer restart cups service just to make sure everything is ok.

  service cups restart

If you also have SAMBA service running, restart that:

service samba restart

Start cups service

If you haven’t started or restarted cups already, this is the time to do it.

 service cups start

Output

 [ ok ] Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.

How to install and configure printers on Linux (cups and foomatic-db) - cups and samba restart - blackMORE Ops

Find USB printer

To find USB printer type the following in Terminal

 netstat -ant | grep 631

Output

 tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 :::* LISTEN
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:39723 ::1:631 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:39722 ::1:631 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 ::1:39723 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:39721 ::1:631 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 ::1:39721 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:39720 ::1:631 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:39724 ::1:631 TIME_WAIT
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 ::1:39722 ESTABLISHED
 tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 ::1:39720 ESTABLISHED

In terminal type:

 lsusb

Output

 Bus 001 Device 010: ID 04a9:173b Canon, Inc.

(Output depends on your printer series)

Configuring Printer

  1. Open browser and type:
    http://127.0.0.1:631/
  2. In semicolon: CUPS for Administrators
  3. Click on Adding Printers and Classes
  4. Click on Add printer
  5. Type your username(system account) and password(system password)
  6. Choose your printer
  7. Follow instructions to complete rest of the installation……
  8. In System Settings: Go and check
    • Printers
  9. You’ll see your installed printer

Add cups service to startup

Follow steps below to add cups for printer to start-up programs:

  1. Go to System Tools>Preferences>Start-up Programs
  2. Click on Add
  3. Type:
    Name: Cups & printers
    command :

    service cups start

    comment: CUPS-standards-based, open source printing system

Now you can print from Linux.

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17 comments

  1. Hi, I tried you method but as soon as I reached the “Find USB printer” step this was the output –

    tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
    tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 :::* LISTEN

    I went ahead and did the next step $ lsusb and the output was this –

    Bus 004 Device 010: ID 03f0:042a Hewlett-Packard
    Bus 004 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
    Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
    Bus 003 Device 004: ID 8087:07da Intel Corp.
    Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0489:d600 Foxconn / Hon Hai
    Bus 003 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
    Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
    Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
    Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

    After that when i went on the link – http://127.0.0.1:631/ in Iceweasel, it simply says unable to connect.

    Please let me know what went wrong here.

    Thank you

  2. after typing the first command i have the following output:

    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package cups is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source

    E: Package ‘cups’ has no installation candidate
    E: Unable to locate package foomatic-db

    • Then your sources are not configured correctly. Add them to /etc/sources.list

      • Search for “20 things to do after installing Kali” which should lead you to another blackmoreops page.

        Bah, edit /etc/apt/sources.list

        Too early in the morning and not enough coffee inside of me yet.

  3. I have this error
    Failed to restart samba.service: Unit samba.service is masked.

    please help me sort it out

  4. Ravinder kumar:
    Do you run apt-get update first?

    Antony:
    Try “service smbd restart”

  5. apt-get install cups cups-client “foomatic-db”
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package cups is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source
    However the following packages replace it:
    cups-client

    E: Package ‘cups’ has no installation candidate
    E: Unable to locate package foomatic-db

    this is the error which i get..what should i do now

  6. This is great, i couldn’t get it to work, I finally got my printer added, think I should be able to actually print something now, thanks so much!

  7. service cups start
    Job for cups.socket failed.
    See “systemctl status cups.socket” and “journalctl -xe” for details.

    service cups start
    Job for cups.socket failed.
    See “systemctl status cups.socket” and “journalctl -xe” for details.

    how do you fix this

  8. Thankyou bro, it worked for me Canon MP270 …

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  10. Actually, this information is very useful, because I learned a lot from this. it helped me a lot. I hope to have many more entries or so from you.

  11. Wow! works for me. Thanks

  12. A large number of printer manufacturers, including Brother and HP, support Linux distributions and distribute their own printer drivers.

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