Epson printer driver and implications, LSB, OS
Hi NMGLUG folks, I'm trying to get my Epson WF-3640 printer to print from my Debian 10 laptop. I have not found a driver specifically for this. I did find a generic driver named epson-escpr for many epson printers from https://www.openprinting.org/printer/Epson/Epson-WF-3640_Series Here's info about my 64-bit OS: ll@leno:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Debian Description: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) Release: 10 Codename: buster I selected the file for x86 64 bit and 1.4.1 (DEB for LSB 3.2). I clicked on it and selected the option to open with GDebi Package Installer. I got an error that Dependency is not satisfiable: lsb (>= 3.2) I heard that debian no longer allows LSB. I don't really understand the relationship. It might be that debian has removed or relocated some functionality related to LSB. It seems like this is the issue preventing me from getting this printer to work for me. What to do? Implications... I've heard that there are some work-arounds possible, but that might create problems. I found a forum post suggesting that debian 11 might work with some driver for this printer. It makes sense for me to upgrade soon to debian 11. I've heard that, if connectivity to printers and other apps is important to me, I might try Ubuntu. One idea is to use a different OS on a different laptop. Another idea is to use a VM for printing. I already have Win10 in a VM. I could put Ubuntu into a VM. I welcome your thoughts. LeRoy -- There is something glorious birthing within all of us. (New for 2021) I am the Love of God, no matter what. LeRoy Diener 213-LEROYIZ 213-537-6949 www.leroydiener.com/
Leroy & NMGLUGers, 1) Probably a good idea to upgrade to Bullseye, Debian 11; many articles are out on the 'net; eg. https://www.tecmint.com/upgrade-debian-10-to-debian-11/. If you have questions about this let us know. I followed an article which I read and reviewed a few times before executing the steps. But having the most current edition of the OS makes sense as a rule. 2) Review your sources.list; you may have to enable contrib or non-free to find packages for your printer. See this link for Debian manuals & upgrades <https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_life_with_eternal_upgrades> to review the whole idea of upgrades. 3) Try to keep it simple; start where you are. The Debian 11 release notes are here: bullseye/amd64/release-notes/ <https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/release-notes/>. Do remember having a backup of your system is always recommended. Also, Debian wiki reminds users to stick with packages within the Debian system. I run Debian 11 and on different hardware Xubuntu 21.10. The two year cycle of Debian versus the six month cycle with Xubuntu gives me a perspective on the changes in the Debian/Ubuntu families. I don't push the limit of any system. I tried to buck the system and lock Firefox at one release and that did not work out - after a series of freezes, I resumed updating Firefox with the approved and current versions. I learned how to set the application settings to make the updated versions work as I wished within the parameters allowed. This does not address the printer issues, but might give you a beginning. In fact a brief web search follows a "now you see it, now you don't" pattern. One other fix I have for wireless printers is to revert to a usb cable; somehow this has made printing easier for two friends who had trouble waking a wireless printer for the occasional print job. Good luck. Do keep working on this and let us know. Thank you, Ted P On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 7:17 AM LeRoy Diener <leroy@choosetherightside.com> wrote:
Hi NMGLUG folks,
I'm trying to get my Epson WF-3640 printer to print from my Debian 10 laptop. I have not found a driver specifically for this. I did find a generic driver named epson-escpr for many epson printers from https://www.openprinting.org/printer/Epson/Epson-WF-3640_Series
Here's info about my 64-bit OS: ll@leno:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Debian Description: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) Release: 10 Codename: buster
I selected the file for x86 64 bit and 1.4.1 (DEB for LSB 3.2). I clicked on it and selected the option to open with GDebi Package Installer. I got an error that Dependency is not satisfiable: lsb (>= 3.2)
I heard that debian no longer allows LSB. I don't really understand the relationship. It might be that debian has removed or relocated some functionality related to LSB. It seems like this is the issue preventing me from getting this printer to work for me.
What to do? Implications... I've heard that there are some work-arounds possible, but that might create problems. I found a forum post suggesting that debian 11 might work with some driver for this printer. It makes sense for me to upgrade soon to debian 11. I've heard that, if connectivity to printers and other apps is important to me, I might try Ubuntu. One idea is to use a different OS on a different laptop. Another idea is to use a VM for printing. I already have Win10 in a VM. I could put Ubuntu into a VM.
I welcome your thoughts. LeRoy -- There is something glorious birthing within all of us. (New for 2021) I am the Love of God, no matter what. LeRoy Diener 213-LEROYIZ 213-537-6949 www.leroydiener.com/ _______________________________________________ nmglug mailing list nmglug@lists.nmglug.org http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
Ted Pomeroy writes:
Leroy & NMGLUGers, 1) Probably a good idea to upgrade to Bullseye, Debian 11; many articles are out on the 'net; eg.
Agreed, especially with Debian stable where there's such a long interval between releases. But with regard to printers: I like Debian a lot, but printer configuration is one area where I've found Ubuntu to be much better than Debian. And even on Ubuntu, printer configuration via the CUPS web service, http://localhost:631, doesn't work all that well. What they really want you to do is run the avahi daemon -- the Linux version of the service Apple used to call Zeroconf and now calls Bonjour -- and let avahi watch for your printer and auto-configure it. We have two laser printers in our household, a monochrome Dell and a color Brother. When I ran a lightweight Debian without avahi, I spent several hours trying printer configurations one after another, but I couldn't make it work without downloading binary packages from both Brother and Dell (I wrote about the details, https://shallowsky.com/blog/linux/cups-printers-urls.html). On Ubuntu, the first time I needed to print something, I hadn't gotten around to removing avahi so it was still running. I turned on the printer, did a File->Print in Firefox or GIMP or whatever program I was running, and the printer magically showed up, and worked. That sounds like I'm a fan of avahi, right? Not really. Actually I'm rather annoyed that Linux printing has gotten so complicated that the only way to get CUPS talking to a laser printer without downloading proprietary drivers and spending an hour randomly switching between settings is to keep a daemon running constantly just for the once or twice a month that I want to print something. But oh, well. Anyway, LeRoy: one thing you might try is to set up a live Ubunto USB stick, boot from it, switch the printer on, and see if you can print. If that works, then at least you know it's possible, and you just need to figure out how to duplicate that in Debian. ...Akkana
participants (3)
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Akkana Peck -
LeRoy Diener -
Ted Pomeroy