Trouble setting up printing from OS X (10.5.7) to an HP PSC 2410 shared from PC running Ubuntu 9.10.

January 23, 2010 9:23 AM

Trouble setting up printing from OS X (10.5.7) to an HP PSC 2410 shared from PC running Ubuntu 9.10. Mainly seems to be a problem finding a proper CUPS-aware driver on the OS X side. Is there a way around this?

I've got a Hewlett-Packard PSC 2410 shared off of a fresh Ubuntu 9.10 installation. I've been able to send documents to this printer over the network from another Ubuntu machine. But so far, I haven't been able to find a setup where I can send documents to that printer from a MacBook running 10.5.7.

When I'm trying to set things up on the Mac side, I go into System Prefs > Print & Fax, click on the "+" mark, select "IP", pick "IPP", enter the IP address of the Ubuntu box, leave the queue blank, enter the Name and location, and I think it's when I get to the "Print Using" (driver selection) part that I'm running into issues.

If I use "Auto Select", it defaults to "Generic PostScript Printer", which the PSC 2410 almost certainly isn't (and sure enough, if I print, the jobs don't go through).

If I try "Select a driver to use...", there's not an option for an HP PSC 2410 (or even a generic 2400 series). This seems odd, given that I can plug the printer directly into one of our Macs and it immediately figures out the driver and I can print no problem. But that's the way things seem to be.

So, that leaves one option: "Other", which, when selected, brings up a dialog apparently for the purpose of manually locating a driver (.ppd?). I've tried visiting HP's web site. They have drivers for earlier versions of OS X, but state that after 10.4, OS X should just come with the relevant drivers.

I've also tried setting things up by interacting with the CUPS server on the Mac through a browser: I go to http://localhost:631/, select "Add New Printer", pick "Internet Printing Protocol (http)" for the Device selection, enter "http://ubuntu.machine.ip.address:631/printers/hp-psc-2400-series" for the Device URI, select "HP" for Make, and then on the next screen, which looks like another driver selection screen, we're back to the problem where the PSC 2410 just doesn't show up. There's an option to "provide a PPD file", which I assume would be the printer driver I can't find. So, things go about the same.

A Google search for "HP PSC 2410 ppd Leopard" doesn't seem to yield much other than a reminder that the printer is supposed to just work out of the box on Leopard. A local search for ".ppd" or "2410" on either Mac also doesn't yield anything that looks like a relevant print driver.

I've also tried setting the driver to PSC 22xx printers, to see if that might just work, but it has the same result as "Generic Postscript Printer."

I'm kindof stuck at this point, but it also seems that there's gotta be some way to make this work. Shouldn't I be able to somehow locate the driver my machine uses when the 2410 is plugged in by USB? Maybe there's a Samba focused solution instead of a CUPS one that's a little less anal about drivers? If nothing else, since the Ubuntu machine sharing the printer can talk to it just fine, shouldn't there be some way to image the document and just let Ubuntu handle the details of getting it to the printer?

Any advice appreciated.

posted by weston to computers & internet (9 answers total)

according to this:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1364/

you can activate bonjour/zeroconf printersharing in unbuntu, perhaps that will be of assistance.

I feel ya, BTW, but you have already walked through the hoops I know about. I do think you should be able to locate the local driver instance.

Here is a similar thread regarding HP and CUPS with a Mac client (same symptoms, can print locally but COPS browser does not include a line-item for the specific HP printer):

http://macosx.com/tech-support/mac/mac-osx-print-driver-installation/4024.html
posted by mwhybark at 9:47 AM on January 23, 2010

caveat, I mistrust the resolution in the last link referenced above.
posted by mwhybark at 9:48 AM on January 23, 2010

another possibility:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2270948&tstart=0:

"I thought I'd pass this note from Cups 1.4 that solved my problem:

Note:Due to user interface changes in Mac OS X 10.5, CUPS shared printers will not automatically appear in the print dialog. Instead, you must first run the following command to enable CUPS browsing on your system:

cupsctl BrowseRemoteProtocols=cups
Then choose each of the CUPS shared printers you want to see in the print dialog by adding them, either from the Add Printer... item in the print dialog or from the Print & Fax preference pane in the System Preferences window.

Running the command brought up the printer on the Mac Mini."
posted by mwhybark at 9:53 AM on January 23, 2010

...and why on earth would Apple disable CUPS browsing?
posted by mwhybark at 9:54 AM on January 23, 2010

more similar, variant on turning on the cups browser:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=677238:

"It turns out that Mac OS X 10.5 doesn't listen by default to CUPS broadcasts that advertise network printers running on other CUPS servers. So, on a terminal session at the Mac, just type

cupsctl BrowseProtocols='"cups dnssd"'

and then all printers will show up on the Add Printers dialog. They can later (if one desires to) be modified via the local CUPS web gui."
posted by mwhybark at 9:57 AM on January 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

mwhybark, that's awesome. I used the later cupsctl command, pulled up the Add Printers dialog, switched from IP to Default, and there it was. OS X figured out the driver, and everything went smoothly.

I'd spent probably almost a day's work on this, browsing a couple of forums, asking in two, and received zero answers. And within a half hour, you picked out the answer to my problem. This is an example of what makes AskMe rock. Thank you.
posted by weston at 11:22 AM on January 23, 2010

(And you've contributed to greater domestic tranquility: this was on my parents home network, and with a shared printer, they won't have to annoy each other by disconnecting each other's USB cables.)
posted by weston at 12:49 PM on January 23, 2010

Glad to be of service!

I wrestled but was bested by the bear when I attempted to bridge two discrete LANs in my house on separate DSL lines. You *can* get CUPS IPP to work over open IP space but it's strongly discouraged, as you have to build in full-on users-and-groups security stuff into your CUPS build, stuff which is not there by default in the Apple releases, sensibly enough.

I still can't quite grok why Apple would turn off CUPS display by default and not provide a GUI switch.
posted by mwhybark at 2:37 PM on January 23, 2010

"I still can't quite grok why Apple would turn off CUPS display by default ..."

Because they use Bonjour / mDNSresponder to handle announcement & discovery generally, rather than relying on specific services to announce themselves via their own means. It does make reasonable sense in Apple-only or mixed Apple/Windows networks.

"... and not provide a GUI switch."

Because it's Apple? ;-)

Arguably, there's no need for it ever to be turned on, except in the specific cases similar to the OP's. Note that if they'd had Zeroconf / mDNSResponder installed & configured to announce printers, that would have worked too.

BTW, in OS X there's a *lot* missing from the GUI to do with CUPS configuration. Most of it - including, IIRC, this setting - can be changed from the CUPS web admin panel at http://localhost:631.
posted by Pinback at 8:25 PM on January 23, 2010