Very slow printing from VMs

[Carnifex]

Hi there.

I have a problem with printing from a VM on my network printer. Lately i switched from a Canon Wi-fi printer to an Epson with ethernet (this was wi-fi related and not my primary problem here). I use a Win10 an Win11 VM in VirtualBox. Both VMs show identical behavior (with both printers). Printing is extremely slow. On a Win11 Host-machine, printing has no issues. Same drivers everywhere.

The network performance monitor shows, that the connection to the printer from the VMs only uses some KiB/s. Copying files is fast as expected, so this is only the connection to the printer.
The printer starts printing and then waits for data some time, prints a bit… waits … prints… this is annoying. A one page document with pictures takes about 15 minutes. From a Win11 Host just 10 seconds.

So whats this all about? Why only printer-connections?

Why i use VMs for printing is because neither Epson nor Canon have printer drivers for Arch Linux (only debian an RHEL **). My Epson model is ET-3950, but not part of the CUPS drivers. Maybe there is a compatible model but i don’t want to test all 500+ models - if someone has any suggestions how to print from Manjaro, this would solve my problem too.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

** Epson also offers sourcecode for linux, but make stops with errors.

[jrichard326]

Your expectations of printing from a Virtual Machine seems lofty. It is always preferable to print from the host, but that’s my opinion.

There is a driver available for your Epson printer from the AUR. The easiest way to install is via pamac.

Be sure that you have the base-devel package installed. Then in terminal or via pamac GUI.

terminal example:

pamac build epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2

Reboot

AUR Info:

Arch User Repository

AUR (en) - epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2

[Teo]

@Carnifex

ET-3950

There are 2 questions here: about a network issue and about a driver.
About the network issue: you have to play with your vmware and firewall setting to see why you have so little speed between host and guest. Probably something with NAT or bridge mode. If it is a network printer, maybe you searched it and installed it with the ip address on the wrong network (since you will now have several). You need the external hot network address.
I use QEMU and Win10 guest and have no such problems.

Now, if this is the only reason to use VM…try to fix you driver issue then. The above mentioned driver package is a starting point.
Actually, when i look at the specs on Amazon, it is a fairly new printer and it support driverless printing. Just start the printer control panel or CUPS and add it, the system will find it. If you do not see it, then you have a network issue or you did not completely install the printing support in manjaro.

sudo pacman -Syu manjaro-printer system-config-printer cups-pk-helper gutenprint ipp-usb splix avahi

If you still do not see it check if the avahi daemon service is running.

[Carnifex]

Thanks, but installation fails.

/var/cache/private/pamac/epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2/PKGBUILD: Zeile 30: ./configure: Keine Berechtigung
==> FEHLER: Ein Fehler geschah in build().
    Breche ab...
          Finished with result: exit-code                         
Main processes terminated with: code=exited, status=4/NOPERMISSION
               Service runtime: 5.930s
             CPU time consumed: 4.549s
                   Memory peak: 83.7M (swap: 0B)

I tried with sudo and as root, same error. base-devel is installed. Am i missing something else?

Actually, when i look at the specs on Amazon, it is a fairly new printer and it support driverless printing. Just start the printer control panel or CUPS and add it, the system will find it. If you do not see it, then you have a network issue or you did not completely install the printing support in manjaro.

I added the printer, it was found on the IP-address i gave him (i tried this bevore). But to finish the configuration, it is required to choose a model - and it is not in the list. So i chose a random one. No printing (from Manjaro) at this point. Printer only says “busy”, bot nothing happens.

Edit: Ok, now it works! I found a comment on the AUR package.

Hi. I just acquired an ET-3950. This driver does not work, possibly due to buggy driver for that printer? When trying to add the printer in CUPS, it tries to connect via a lpd://:515/PASSTHRU adress, where it sends documents but never print. The only way to make this printer work is to configure it using Avahi-daemon, then connection address becomes ipps://EPSON10A0C3.local:631/ipp/print with IPP Everywhere driver. Anyone else having such issues? I saw in the forum similar issues. EDIT: Problem comes from the PPD file provided by Epson in this driver. If I replace the IPP Everywhere .ppd file with Epson’s then it fails to print (although queue empties). I do not know if it is an Arch issue, or locale issue or Epson issue.

If i choose IPPS with the IP-Address from my printer, i have the model-option “IPP Everywhere” - now i can print from my Manjaro machine!