USB Printers - CUPS Printing

Plugged in Star SK1-311 roll tape printer used in Satellite enclosures

From a terminal type dmesg.

card825gen2:~$ dmesg
...
[ 7953.117705] usb 1-1.4: new full-speed USB device number 8 using xhci-hcd
[ 7953.326192] usblp 1-1.4:1.0: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 8 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x0519 pid 0x004D
[ 7953.326307] usbcore: registered new interface driver usblp

Verified it does work to print text to /dev/usb/lp0

825gen2 has CUPS (Common Unix Printing System)

lpinfo does show it

card825gen2:~$ /usr/sbin/lpinfo -v
network socket
network lpd
network ipp
network http
direct usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)
network dnssd://Canon%20TX-3000._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=00000000-0000-1000-8000-001832104e5a
network dnssd://Canon%20iPR%20Svr%20G250%20V2.1%20US(64%3A59%3AA5)._printer._tcp.local/
network dnssd://HP%20Designjet%20T520%2024in%20%5BD50233%5D._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=abcd9e8e-4886-85c2-2167-b143d1c2344a
network dnssd://HP%20LaserJet%20P2055dn%20%5B82FCF4%5D._pdl-datastream._tcp.local/
network dnssd://Lexmark%20C2240._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=584bdd81-d230-49f3-a210-d39ac56492d0

To just show any usb printers

card825gen2:~$ /usr/sbin/lpinfo --include-schemes usb -v
direct usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)

Some research showed that Star printer requires a CUPS driver. 1/5/2024 The Star SK1-311 CUPS driver was compiled for the 825gen2 and will be added to the next OS image.

card825gen2:~$ /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p STARSK1_311 -v usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20\(STR-001\)
-m sk1-311_presenter.ppd
lpadmin: Printer drivers are deprecated and will stop working in a future version of CUPS.

Found it necessary to run cupsaccept to set the printer up to accept jobs.

card825gen2:~$ /usr/sbin/cupsaccept STARSK1_311

card825gen2:~$ lpstat -W not-completed
STARSK1_311-4           admin           115712   Wed Jan 10 16:30:21 2024

card825gen2:~$ lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
device for STARSK1_311: usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)
device for STARSK311: usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)
STARSK1_311 accepting requests since Wed Jan 10 16:29:32 2024
STARSK311 accepting requests since Wed Jan 10 16:06:30 2024
printer STARSK1_311 disabled since Wed Jan 10 16:29:32 2024 -
        reason unknown
printer STARSK311 disabled since Wed Jan 10 16:06:30 2024 -
        reason unknown
STARSK311-1             admin             1024   Wed Jan 10 16:25:01 2024
STARSK311-2             admin             3072   Wed Jan 10 16:25:55 2024
STARSK311-3             admin           115712   Wed Jan 10 16:27:30 2024
STARSK1_311-4           admin           115712   Wed Jan 10 16:30:21 2024

card825gen2:~$ /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p STARSK1_311 -E

card825gen2:~$ lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
device for STARSK1_311: usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)
device for STARSK311: usb://SANEI/SK1-311%20Presenter%20(STR-001)
STARSK1_311 accepting requests since Wed Jan 10 16:34:59 2024
STARSK311 accepting requests since Wed Jan 10 16:06:30 2024
printer STARSK1_311 is idle.  enabled since Wed Jan 10 16:34:59 2024
        Sending data to printer.
printer STARSK311 disabled since Wed Jan 10 16:06:30 2024 -
        reason unknown
STARSK311-1             admin             1024   Wed Jan 10 16:25:01 2024
STARSK311-2             admin             3072   Wed Jan 10 16:25:55 2024
STARSK311-3             admin           115712   Wed Jan 10 16:27:30 2024
STARSK1_311-4           admin           115712   Wed Jan 10 16:30:21 2024

card825gen2:~$ lp -d STARSK1_311 /home/admin/test.txt
request id is STARSK1_311-5 (1 file(s))

Printed successfully - "test 123"

card825gen2:~$ lp -d STARSK1_311 /usr/images/icon_keyboard.bmp
request id is STARSK1_311-6 (1 file(s))

Printed successfully but rotated and enlarged

card825gen2:~$ lp -d STARSK1_311 /usr/images/cardinal_logo.bmp
request id is STARSK1_311-9 (1 file(s))

cardinal_logo.bmp

Printed successfully but rotated and enlarged

The Star printer driver seems to only work for BMP files. Tried other graphics formats such as PNG and JPEG but only black tickets printed.

There is some example code of cups printing on stackoverflow.com. This can be compiled for the 825. Some changes were needed to get it to work.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <cairo.h>
#include <cairo-ps.h>
#include <cups/cups.h>

#include "cairobmp.h"

#define WIDTH 320
#define HEIGHT 500

int main(int argc, char** argv) {

  int n;

  char tmpFilepath[] = "/tmp/tktprtXXXXXX";

  mkstemp(tmpFilepath);
  printf("tmpFilename [%s]\n", tmpFilepath);


  cairo_surface_t* surface = cairo_image_surface_create(CAIRO_FORMAT_A1, WIDTH, HEIGHT);
  cairo_t *context = cairo_create(surface);

  LoadBMPToSurface("/usr/images/card_logo_bw.bmp", surface, 0, 0);

  // draw some text
  cairo_select_font_face(context, "Arial Black", CAIRO_FONT_SLANT_NORMAL, CAIRO_FONT_WEIGHT_NORMAL);
  cairo_set_font_size(context, 30);
  int x = 20;
  int y = 140;
  cairo_move_to(context, x, y);
  cairo_show_text(context, "Item 1");
  y += 30;
  cairo_move_to(context, x, y);
  cairo_show_text(context, "Item 2");
  y += 30;
  cairo_move_to(context, x, y);
  cairo_show_text(context, "Item 3");

  // draw a dotted box
  const double pattern[] = {15.0, 10.0};
  cairo_set_dash(context, pattern, 2, 0);
  cairo_set_line_width(context, 5);
  cairo_rectangle(context, 5, 105, 280, 300);
  cairo_stroke(context);

  // finish up
  cairo_show_page(context);
  cairo_destroy(context);
  cairo_surface_flush(surface);

   CairoSurfaceToBMP(surface, /*"/tmp/tkt9.bmp"*/ tmpFilepath);

 // n = cairo_surface_write_to_png (surface, "/tmp/tkt.png");
 // printf("write_to_png result %d\n", n);

  cairo_surface_destroy(surface);

  const char* printerName = cupsGetDefault();
  printf("printer [%s]\n", printerName);

  // cupsGetDefault is returning NULL
  printerName = "STARSK1_311";
  n = cupsPrintFile(printerName, tmpFilepath, "cairo PS", 0, NULL);
  // return value is job ID
  printf("cupsPrintFile result %d\n", n);

  //unlink(tmpFilepath);

  return 0;
}

Ticket produced by above example:

The CUPS web interface may also be used for monitoring of USB printers. Refer to Network Printing