HOWTO Epson C1100

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] Introduction

The Epson C1100 Printer can cause some issues during its setup. This small HOWTO is based on how I got the printer to work on my 32bit setup (2.6.21 - Gnome 2.16 - ~x86)

You must first ensure your Kernel is compiled with USB Support for Printing.

[edit] Kernel 2.6.x

cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig

Device Drivers --->
   USB support --->
        <*> Support for USB
        <*>   EHCI HCD (USB 2.0 Support)
        <*>   OHCI (Compaq, iMacs, OPTi, SiS, ALi, ...) support
        <*>   UHCI (Intel PIIX4, VIA, ...) support
        <*>   USB Printer Support

EHCI support is for USB 2.0 - this may or may not be needed if you have USB 2.0 ports and a USB 1.x printer. If you just have USB 1.x you don't need it. Your system will support either OHCI or UHCI, just to be safe though you can compile both of them into the kernel. If you only compile one in and the system can't detect your printer try the other one.

Compile the kernel, install it, make sure you have setup your bootloader, and reboot into it.

[edit] Make sure your printer is detected

If you have not already, plug your printer into your system and switch it on. If you run 'dmesg' you should see something like this:

usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 3 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007
usb 1-6: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 4 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007
usb 1-6: USB disconnect, address 4
usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 5 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007
usb 1-6: USB disconnect, address 5
usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 6 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0007

[edit] Get required packages

You now need to download the following packaged in order for the printer to work.

emerge -uDN cupsd cups foomatic-filters foomatic-filters-ppds foomatic-db-ppds

cups and foomatic are needed for the next step, otherwise the driver will not run correctly.

[edit] Download the C1100 Driver

You must goto the AVASYS Site in order to obtain the latest C1100 Driver (version 1.2 at time of this guide)

http://www.avasys.jp/english/linux_e/dl_laser.html

Select the following: Model - AcuLaser C1100 Distribution - Others Distribution Version - Others

Fill in the rest of the required fields, and select Submit.

In the list of files to download ( Download for AcuLaser C1100 for CUPS), choose Source File - Epson-ALC1100-filter-1.2.tar.gz

Then install the driver from source...

tar xzvf Epson-ALC1100-filter-1.2.tar.gz
cd Epson-ALC1100-filter-1.2/
sudo apt-get install libcupsys2-dev
./configure
make
make install

Restart CUPS

/etc/init.d/cupsd restart

[edit] Install the Printer and Test

Once cups is restarted, goto the following location.

http://localhost:631

You need to login as ROOT on the Web Login

Goto Administration, and there should be listed EPSON AL-C1100 (EPSON AL-C1100 USB #1). Choose Add This Printer

Scroll down the Model/Driver list, and select EPSON AL-C1100, ESC/PageS Filter(en)

Once you select Add Printer, you should be presented with Printer EPSON_AL-C1100_USB_1 has been added successfully.

Now select the Printers menu from the top of the CUPS Admin, and choose Set Allowed Users

In there, just enter the usernames you wish to allow access to.

Before doing this I previously had numerous errors in my cups/error_log saying Access Denied or No Credentials. This solved that problem

Now if you select Print Test Page, the printer should work!