This site of Epson for the Artisan 1430 lists three drivers for linux (I couldn’t get a direct link so have to type “Artisan 1430” in the search box first to see the drivers; it appers that the url doesn’t include the search parameters). I’m using CUPS, now, with the Gutenprint driver; but, where there is a background image of opacity less than 1, the print decreases the opacity of what should be the top layer also. I created this PDF a couple years ago and printed it many times before with the correct layers and opacity, although not certain that ever used this Epson printer.
I’d like to try a different driver to see if that might correct this and my question is, How can I get these drivers “into CUPS” to try them?
After selecting one, and selecting Accept and then Package Download Page, there appear to be two sets for at least some of them divided by “deb” and “rpm”. Should one of these work with Manjaro and can it be added to CUPS to select?
The Open Printing site lists a drive and when select it, it navigates to the same site above in which one has to search for Artisan 1430 and arrives at the same drivers.
Thank you for considering my question.
This looks like it from the description.
It’s old - didn’t change for 3.5 years - but the description of supported models matches.
AUR has some requirements - read about how to use it.
Just to add some info.
These are Debian and Fedora package formats.
They are not Arch/Manjaro compatible as-is.
Thanks. Two of the three at the Epson site are from 2024, one from August.
I don’t know enough about all of this to be definitive, but my limited experience is that it is often a waste of time trying to get something to work from the AUR that doesn’t sound too good to start with. I recently wasted time trying that for a Dell printer and ended up with nothing that worked except, later, something from SNAP that every one said was insecure.
If there is not a linux driver that works with Arch/Manjaro, can something like Oracle virtual box work for printing using Windows drivers? I’ve never used it before but it might be worth the effort to learn just to keep the printers working with full options.
I’ve been printing to an HP printer using hplip but that does not involve any background images or layers, or the options available in the Artisan printer.
but there is - the one I linked
It might not be the most current - I don’t know.
keyword here:
limited experience
but it is up to you to try it or not …
The PKGBUILD will use the drivers from the Epson site - either the .rpm or the .deb version.
no
you would have to run a Windows VM - and could only print using that
a very very very roundabout way
might work - not practical
not at all
Thank you. I’m not familiar with how to make a PKGBUILD but, in looking over the one provided on the AUR page to which you kindly linked, it appears that it starts with the 1lsb3.2.src.rpm which is the version released in 2012. At first, I thought that was the date last modified indicating that it may not be up-to-date.
The two drivers (rpm versions) released in 2024 are:
epson-inkjet-printer-escpr-1.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm and
epson-printer-utility-1.1.3-1.x86_64.rpm and
However, the escpr version caused the user in this AUR post to have issues (see #30) and, as can be seen in that same thread, a patch was needed to get the 2012 version to work for that user (see #31). Also, on page 1 of that post, it was noted that the PKGBUILD may have needed changes but the build system was quite old (see #24) making it not possible to make the changes that poster felt should be made. But that was in 2017 and the last update to the 201114w package was 2021-02-26; so, it may have been fixed; but, in 2021-10-17, the comment on the AUR site reads that the user still needed to make changes to get it to work.
One is left wondering if the 2012 version is the correct option or if one of the versions released in 2024 might be better suited; yet, one of those may cause issues and the AUR package is for the 2012 version only. The 2012 version may require some form of patch and that’s beyond my knowledge.
Using the AUR always feels like a risk, and if it installs without messing something else up, it still may not actually work. I may still try installing it on a machine that I can risk having down for awhile, but, overall, it just doesn’t seem worth the risk.
I’m not complaining but only attempting to explain what I meant by wasting time. Linux provides features and software that has made it possible to accomplish a lot of work efficiently, but printing is a short coming; I suppose of the printer manufacturers for not providing linux drivers. In this case it appears they have but not directly for Arch linux.
You can install rpmtoarch from the AUR and convert the official driver packages into ALPM packages.
pamac build rpmtoarch
I presume the tool will have a man page. If it only converts the package without installing it, then you can use pacman for the actual installation of the converted package. See the man page for pacman, and remember that pacman must be used with sudo or run as root if you’re going to install or remove any packages with it.
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Thank you very much. I’ll give it a try.
I found that editing the PDF in LibreOffice Draw to reset the background image’s transparency and stack position, resulted in the correct printing using a Gutenprint driver and printer cable.
I’ve no idea why it would’ve changed unless it has to do with from where the PDF was printed before; and I cannot recall for certain. It appears correctly in Okular but prints incorrectly; when opened in Draw, the images had no transparency and were on top of the stack. So, I’ve no idea.
Regardless, I’d like to know how to use these Epson drivers. Thanks again.
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The established procedure is to submit a feature request to the CUPS Issue Tracker if your printer isn’t yet supported by CUPS, or is incomplete in some way.
There used to be a snmpwalk command that could generate the types of information that would help identify your printer for CUPS purposes.
snmpwalk -Cc -v 1 -c public ip-address | tee snmpwalk.log
(Substitute ip-address for the IP address of the printer)
Assuming you can find the snmpwalk command, send its output along with the request to support your printer; attach the logs created.
Keep in mind that you could also try other CUPs drivers for similar printers; this is common practice as many drivers support multiple printers; despite the apparent model number. One of these may even solve your issue, and save a lot of time and effort.
Cheers.
See also: OpenPrinting CUPS
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@Gary1
I have been using the drivers from the AUR for my printers for years. Back then, the Cups drivers did not produce color printouts correctly.
You can find the manufacturer drivers in the AUR and you can also install them there. In your picture in post 6, you can see driver 1.8.5 in the middle, the driver is encoded in the model number in brackets (ESC/P-R).
So look for the escpr driver in the AUR. This is for various printers and works better on some devices than the Cups drivers, which in turn can work very well on other devices.
Edit: @ added to the name.
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Hi @ManLuxer
If you want @Gary1 (or any other member, for that matter) to see your post in a timely fashion, it’s usually best to include the @ in front of their username.
This mention would then be (almost) immediately included with their usual notifications.
Cheers.
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@soundofthunder
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve corrected it above.
Cheers.
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You might consider using these drivers from the AUR:
pamac build epson-inkjet-printer-escpr
pamac build epson-printer-utility
I’m guessing that once these are installed, the drivers should be detectable by CUPS.
CUPS/Printer-specific problems - Epson - ArchWiki
epson-inkjet-printer-escprAUR and epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2AUR are sets of drivers using the Epson Inkjet Printer Driver (ESC/P-R) for Linux.
List of supported printers for epson-inkjet-printer-escpr includes Artisan 1430
rpmtoarch is not needed to build the driver, but base-devel should be installed before building AUR packages
pamac install base-devel; pamac build epson-inkjet-printer-escpr
Find a Driverless Printer - OpenPrinting
Most modern printers support AirPrint™ and/or IPP Everywhere™ standards for driverless printers
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Thank you. We had installed Epson iPrint on an iPad and were able to print but most of the options were not available; for example, I’m just guessing that there are at least 30 different media types to select from and the iPrint lists two. I do not recall why but there was some reason that we couldn’t use AirPrint for this model; I think it just doesn’t support it.
I had not heard of IPP Everywhere; thank you for pointing it out. We need to purchase a printer that can print a lot of pages per month (150,000 or so; that’s a lot to me); and are sort of stuck between a higher-end office printer and the smallest of the print-shop machines. Researching which have manufacturer provided drivers for Linux was one issue; perhaps, IPP will make that easier.
Another that is off topic for this question is that it was confusing (still is to me) to understand how they get a maximum duty cycle of 100,000 pages per month and have a recommended usage of 5,000 pages. I understand the general concept but the values across printers by the same manufacturer and different manufactures don’t make sense to me. Sometimes printers with lower maximum duty cycles have higher recommended page counts’ such as a 300k / 20k versus a 200k / 40-50k.
