Trouble setting up a printer

[Mocheeba]

Hi,
I'm trying to set up a Brother HL1430 BW laser printer. It can use both USB and parallel connection. Either way, however, doesn't work. I've tried installing a new kernel, that is reconfiguring the old one and compiling and installing it again (it's 2.16.12-gentoo-r10) using Genkernel and enabling printing on parallel as well as USB. I have got a hold of the PPD-file form linuxprinting.org and CUPS is up and running, but alas no printing! Any suggestions?
Thanks

[wally.hall]

(Firstly, have you checked http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/printing-howto.xml? It should guide you all of the way through, if not I've noted another method below.)

(I've only a few times touched upon CUPS, I'm working most of this out from the latest Linux Format magazine, you can get it in WHSmiths in the UK, it has a full article on CUPS this month) CUPS has a front end which can be accessed via HTTP, so in a webbrowser on the box, hit http://127.0.0.1:631. A CUPS welcome page should appear (if not, is CUPS emerged and running properly?)

In the browser, follow the Manage Printers link. Now you want to give the printer a name and location (and optionally a description). These don't affect the drivers or anything, they're just a way of identifying the printer.

Now select the manufacturer and select the printer model. You can always just keep coming back here to poke around with different options over and over until something interesting happens!

Next select the model, then finally the connection. I would imagine USB being more reliable than LPT, but then again I might be wrong! No harm in trying both.

Finally print a test page to see what happens. See if it worked!

Also, you might want to try configuring it through the kdecontrolcenter. There's a module for printers in there, it does the same as the CUPS web interface, just through KDE. The CUPS interface will almost certainly be more reliable, but if it proves confusing, the KDE option is available.

Happy printing, E-Mail me if you have any probs! Hope it all goes well.
_________________
I like Gentoo why?
Because it works how I want it to work.

[Mocheeba]

Thanks a lot . I haven't read the How-to Gentoo-doc - might prove to contain some valuable info . I'll give it a try as soon as I get home... I'll post back if I can't figure it out.

Cheers!

[wally.hall]

Hope the info proves useful!

I'll keep and eye out for any more probs
_________________
I like Gentoo why?
Because it works how I want it to work.