Printing

You want to print from your crouton?

1. Install cups and related packages: sudo apt-get install cups system-config-printer-gnome
   To get a working lpr command, also install cups-bsd. You'll also want to install hplip if you're using an HP printer. Get the latest hplip package and make from http://hplipopensource.com/. There maybe other packages necessary for other printers, please add them here.

2. Add yourself to the lpadmin group: sudo adduser <username> lpadmin

3. init scripts don't work right in crouton so we need to start cups somehow. One way is to edit /etc/rc.local and add: /usr/sbin/cupsd

4. If you want to connect to remote CUPS servers, install cups-browsed, put your configuration into /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf, and in /etc/rc.local add: /usr/sbin/cups-browsed &

5. Finally, log out of your crouton and back in. You should now be able use Printer Settings to configure your printer.

This has been tested on a shared network printer. It also works for directly connected printers, including an ML-1740.

---

Samsung ARM Chromebook and HP printers requiring proprietary plugin, e.g. HP p1102w

The proprietary plugin from HP for certain printers is a binary file downloaded as part of the hplip installation process. The source code is not available and the binary will not run on ARM processors. This is a known limitation and is well documented at https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/1152219

An alternative printer driver is available from http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/

• If hplip is installed, uninstall using $ hp-uninstall
• Follow the installation instructions at http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/INSTALL
• I also installed $ sudo make install install-hotplug cups which may not be necessary
• After installation, run $ sudo system-config-printer to add a printer, in my case, click Network Printer - Find Network Printer and enter host IP, click Find. Accepted recommended default settings, printed test page, and that was it!

FWIW, HP p1102w with the latest firmware works well with Google Cloud Print from ChromeOS and Nexus devices.

Tested on Samsung Chromebook, Crouton, Ubuntu 12.04.4, xfce4, HP p1102w

---

Updated for XFCR, ARM, Ubuntu 14.04

• Follow the installation instructions at http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/INSTALL

• install cups avahi-daemon system-config-printer-common system-config-printer-gnome

• start manually

  sudo /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon start

  sudo /etc/init.d/cups start

• or add services, applications - settings - sessions and startup - add

  /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon

   /etc/init.d/cups
  

• once services are started, you can verify by running,

$ ps -ae | grep avahi-daemon

19238 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon

19239 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon

$ ps -ae | grep cups

19435 ? 00:00:00 cupsd

• because the printer gui run from applications - system - printers doesn’t run with the correct permissions, run $ sudo system-config-printer. I’m sure this could be corrected by updated the permissions on some config file, but running sudo works

Note: The services weren't running on restart, however, I needed to start cups only to configure the printer. Please update this doc as needed.