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Adding a Printer.

I have to admit to being a total noob to Artix; I had been using Mint Since Bianca, but let Mint get away from me such that I was still on 17.3 and I decided I wanted to try something else.

Artix is very snappy, but I am finding difficulty because I always start typing the old syntax in Konsole.

Anyway, I am trying to get my Xerox Phaser 6510DN working, When I Add Printer, Artix "sees" it but I cannot get it configured. I did download the driver, but I've clearly done something wrong.

Any ideas?

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #1 –
Hello and welcome,

Which init: openrc, runit or s6?
What graphic environment?
I guess plasma ...

*******

I assume you have cups installed and are in the sys or wheel group?

For openrc :
pacman -Sy cups-openrc
rc-update add cupsd
rc-service cupsd start

*******

Check if the user is part of the wheel or sys group:
groups user

To add a user to sys or wheel:
sudo usermod -a -G wheel  user
sudo usermod -a -G sys  user

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #2 –
And in case you are using runit as your init system:

pacman -Sy cups-runit
ln -s /etc/runit/sv/cupsd /run/runit/service

CUPS should start immediately after creating the symbolic link.
Code: [Select]
ARTIX Dinit + SDDM + Enlightenment

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #3 –
Can you tell where did you get drivers?
I am asking because company is providing driver in DEB and RPM package, these can't be install directly on Artix Linux.


I found this packages from AUR xerox-workcentre-6515-6510 , this can be helpful.
Create problems which don't have solution

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #4 –
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/Printer-specific_problems#Xerox_or_FujiXerox
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CUPS/Printer-specific_problems#Phaser_6125N
Quote
Warning: This section involves installing packages without pacman. These directions should ideally be automated with a PKGBUILD.
FujiXerox does not support Linux on this model. An old rpm is available but does not seem to work.

A slightly adapted custom driver has been found to work out of the box.

To install the tarball, run:

# tar -C / --keep-newer-files -xvzf cups-xerox-phaser-6125n-1.0.0.tar.gz

A reminder to read the Wiki.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #5 –
Quote from: tintin – on
Hello and welcome,

Which init: openrc, runit or s6?
What graphic environment?
I guess plasma ...

*******

I assume you have cups installed and are in the sys or wheel group?

For openrc :
pacman -Sy cups-openrc
rc-update add cupsd
rc-service cupsd start

*******

Check if the user is part of the wheel or sys group:
groups user

To add a user to sys or wheel:
sudo usermod -a -G wheel  user
sudo usermod -a -G sys  user

I am the only user. I don't know what a wheel/sys group is. I did download the open RC .iso; I read about the different version, but frankly I couldn't see why I would want one over the other. BTW, the guy who recommended Artix to me did so because he told me how bad systemd was/is. I never knew about systemd and it's apparent "evils" before.

I admit to being not knowledgeable at all, but I thought maybe I could download a Software Manager similar to what I had with Mint to help. Probably a silly assumption, I should just learn to do these things properly. Artix was recommended to me by a distro hopper, but he was a programmer, I am not. I usually to get Mint working by looking for packages in the SM or adding via Konsole.

If I am the only user, should I be doing things differently? Even though I am really the only one using this system here, anyone has access to it in the family, and I'd like to give them the opportunity to print without the Konsole, which nobody would be arsed to do.

I am using KDE, Plasma, BTW.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Arch_user – on
Can you tell where did you get drivers?
I am asking because company is providing driver in DEB and RPM package, these can't be install directly on Artix Linux.


I found this packages from AUR xerox-workcentre-6515-6510 , this can be helpful.

I downloaded the drivers from Xerox specifically for the 6510, but I have clearly not done something right. The system "sees" the printer, but I expect something is missing. My apologies on late replies, I have been busy with our air con install.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #7 –
I'm not sure how to work with the AUR package. I found something that tells me how to install using Packer. I will try that tomorrow and see if I can figure it out. Hopefully I have not already done too much to break anything.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #8 –
Software manager alternative = Pamac ? But it's usually preferred to manage packages in a terminal due to more easily seeing the error messages and output. There are various aur helpers. Pamac will also work with the AUR. If you get the printer to work it should work like anywhere else, file - print, Ctrl P in browser, the browser may already offer to print to file even now.
You'll probably need to learn what a group is.
I read postscript printers don't need a driver, just a ppd file, and if you install it you should end up with this file:
/usr/share/ppd/xerox/xrx6510.ppd
(from the PKGBUILD)
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=xerox-workcentre-6515-6510
There might be some desktop menu settings stuff for printers you need to do too.
If you use the aur package and an aur helper it should get updated if needed, although you can use pacman and update it manually too.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #9 –
Quote from: fixrman – on
I am the only user. I don't know what a wheel/sys group is.
The answer is here :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/users_and_groups#User_groups

Quote
I never knew about systemd and it's apparent "evils" before.
systemd is a kind of "Windows" which drives your Linux system in the background :-/

Quote
I admit to being not knowledgeable at all, but I thought maybe I could download a Software Manager similar to what I had with Mint to help.
For KDE Plasma you can add octopi:
sudo pacman -Sy octopi

However pamac is also very good and can be used:
sudo pacman -Sy pamac-gtk

In these two graphical utilities, you can enable AUR repositories.
But be careful when adding AUR packages: it can become a mess if you don't know what you're doing!

Personally, I installed a few Aur packages, but then as a precaution I disabled this repository in octopi and in pamac

********
"As of June 2021, all Arch repositories are disabled by default. To enable them, install artix-archlinux-support and follow the on-screen instructions to activate the Arch repositories you want, most likely extra, community and multilib, which contain packages not yet in Artix repositories. Do not enable community alone as it contains packages dependent on others in extra."
https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Repositories#Arch_repositories

If you want to install packages that are not in the artix repositories, you add the TWO extra and community repositories in /etc/pacman.conf:
sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

And you add this:
 
Code: [Select]
# ARCHLINUX
 [extra]
 Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

 [community]
 Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

Update the system:
sudo pacman -Syyu

 

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #10 –
"Personally, I installed a few Aur packages, but then as a precaution I disabled this repository in octopi and in pamac"
But then they won't get updates, and depending on what they are, eventually they may stop working because everything else is getting updated?  If there were some you didn't want updated, perhaps because they take a long time to build, you might be better to add those to "IgnorePkg =" in /etc/pacman.conf. If you only have 1 or 2 AUR packages then git clone / makepkg is probably fine, it's only if you have several that are getting regular updates an AUR helper becomes important I think.
And if you have the lib32 repo enabled then you might want the Arch equivalent multilib.

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #11 –
Quote from: ####### – on
But then they won't get updates, and depending on what they are, eventually they may stop working because everything else is getting updated?
Right, I forgot to mention that from time to time I activate the AUR repository and update the applications linked to this repository.


Quote
If there were some you didn't want updated, perhaps because they take a long time to build, you might be better to add those to "IgnorePkg =" in /etc/pacman.conf. If you only have 1 or 2 AUR packages then git clone / makepkg is probably fine, it's only if you have several that are getting regular updates an AUR helper becomes important I think.
I still have about ten ...
But your proposed solutions are relevant and will interest fixrman.

Quote
And if you have the lib32 repo enabled then you might want the Arch equivalent multilib.
I am not concerned, but I note  8)

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #12 –
Thanks for the very helpful replies and instructions! I will read the Wiki first, so I am familiar with the background, and then I'll do the suggestions.

I had been finding problems with help that I searched for, in that most of the advise was no longer appropriate because it was too old. I am going to try the suggestions tomorrow; I find it helpful to be without distractions and to be well-rested, else I am prone to make errors otherwise. Thanks to all for the help, and I will post the hopeful success.

 :)

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #13 –
Per the wiki, I think I need to be in the Wheel group. Since I am really the only user of the system (other than for someone using a browser to look something up, or to print - which currently they don't have the ability to do) I could really have full Administrator or Root privileges throughout.

No one is going to use the Terminal; I had taught my son years ago how to update Mint (I still find myself typing sudo Apt -get update), but he hasn't done it since I taught him a long time ago. Security is not a concern, because I am really the only one who uses it, certainly the only one who maintains the system.

I don't recall having to set up a Group; did I miss something in the install routine?

Re: Adding a Printer.

Reply #14 –
If you look in /etc/group you can see what groups you are in, lp is the printer group, you want to be in that one for printing.
https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Configuration
You probably don't need all those groups, some don't even exist on my system for example. But make sure you use -a with usermod  ;D
Running as root might be OK if you never plan to connect to the internet and are sure you won't ever issue any wrong commands by mistake...
Puppy Linux runs as root but is designed differently, like an immutable live OS with persistence.