Since you do not say HOW the printer is being used - which OS hosts it and so on - it's not really possible to comment.

I've been running a mixed linux (ubuntu and now mint) and windows (2000) for some time, with linux ubuntu driving the printer, and have only one real problem: a windows machine sometimes needs to log on to the linux printer host in order to use it - a known problem possibly due to the age of windows and its password/security setup. A couple of seconds with Windows Explorer and it's working again.

It is a wireless printer. I don't know what I have done but it tells me that the status is "Idle - Filter Failed".

I've installed the print to pdf and I get the same problem so I don't think it is anything to do with the printer.

The error log states "Job stopped due to filter errors; please consult the error_log file for details" but the error_log is where I get that information and nothing else seems to mean anything.

I've had two problems to sort out today with Linux and spent 12 hours in total. So far, neither problem is solved.

Tried it with another printer. Both with USB connected to Linux, both failed. It is Linux that is the problem.

How do I uninstall everything to do with printing and reinstall?

Or this is a similar problem from someone else with no fix for two weeks:
[ubuntuforums.org...]

This "Idle - Filter failed" problem seems to be a confirmed bug in Ubuntu which has been reported by multiple users in the last few weeks. It may have been triggered by a recently pushed update.

More information here on the Ubuntu bug tracker: [bugs.launchpad.net...]

Well a bug is no good. I need to print from this machine.

How do I rollback an update?

Ubuntu has no downgrade option for updates. The proper way to do it is to uninstall the package and then reinstall the older version of it. Be sure to copy all setting files first to a safe location to prevent the uninstall-reinstall cycle from overwriting your cups printing system configuration.

I'm new to this OS. I have sudo apt-get update, remove, install and dpkg --purge. That's all I understand so far.

So using this, I can purge/remove the updated packages. Where do I get the older packages that worked? And once I have printing working again, how do I stop those packages from updating? (I've read you can do this)

I swear, this OS needs some serious help. Everything is too complicated. File permissions have caused nothing but a headache for me. I am so close to the command 'sudo chmod -R 777 /*' or even worse, sudo apt-get install Windows7

Linux has never been an easy-to-use OS. It is for the intelligent hobbyist who wants complete control of their computer.

If you want things to work go to Windows 7.

I have sieved through the log files of a similar bug report in the Ubuntu bug tracker and there are many errors related to files which cannot be opened. Could you therefore login as user root and try to print from that account? You should do a full login as this user, not just going to root user level with the su or sudo command to be sure that all login scripts are properly parsed and all needed environment variables are set.

@StoutFiles, I know people who are not intelligent hobbyists, who are in fact completely naive users, who use Linux: I would say it is in many ways easier to use(software installation for example) and a lot more works out of the box than with Windows.

@PCInk:

1) I have used Windows enough to know that there are plenty of things that do not work on Windows. My experience has been that Linux is MUCH less hassle and more reliable. YMMV.
2) If you really want something more reliable use the last Ubuntu LTS (which I do). If you want something really, really reliable use Debian or Red Hat.

...and there are many errors related to files which cannot be opened

I am getting this all the time. This is why FetchMail, ProcMail and DoveCot wouldn't work. ProcMail was creating errors but couldn't even write to it's own log file! It is also why it took me several hours to be able to write to a hard disk I had formatted to ext4, because it decided the disk belonged to 'root'.

It will probably be a file permission error again.

You should do a full login as this user

So, how do you log in as root? I'd like to try this so I can just press 'Test Print' to see if this is the issue.

Have to say my (working) ubuntu machines are still Lucid (v10.04) and will never be any more recent - didn't get on with v12 at all. Also I use USB printing - no wireless here at all.

My latest linux is Mint Maya (v13) with Mate interface and that's fine.

Even so, it looks as if something on your system has installed with incorrect permissions, especially for mail.

Well, I am installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Or should I say I am installing it for the second time tonight. Dovecot has now messed up though I did get printing working without issue.

I have never had to reinstall a copy of Windows. In fact, I have a laptop with a damaged hard drive that will be getting replaced over Christmas and that will be the first time I have ever installed Windows to replace an existing copy.

Great. I've reinstalled and got dovecot working with fetchmail and procmail.

But now the printer driver won't install again. Apparently, I have broken packages so lsb won't install. What on earth does that mean?

Apparently, an "unresolved dependancy"?

Forget the broken packages. I have uninstalled something big by mistake.

I am reinstalling the whole OS for the third time today. Fed up. I am going to try and install the printer driver first this time. What a joke this operating system is.

All I want is Apache, Perl, PHP, a Mail Server and the ability to print. It seems Linux can't do this.

It didn't work.

What has worked is refusing the updates it suggests when Ubuntu first starts up. There was about 280 package updates. I've refused these and the system seems to be working. I haven't tested everything yet but hopefully this might work.

So, I'll have to get it working and switch off all updates!

sorry you've had such trouble!

i use debian - it's a bit old fashioned, but seems to work well.

Brilliant. I get almost everything working.

Last thing to install - Samba. Broken package.

What do I have to do to install a printer driver, apache2, php5, squirrelmail, dovecot, msmtp and procmail. It shouldn't be this complicated.

Seriously, what is a 'broken package'? Why is it broke? What have I done to stop it from installing?

Scathing indeed. You could at least dual boot the machine until you decide to ditch Linux or go back to Windows.

What a joke this operating system is.

Except for the desktop, your world runs on Linux/Unix/BSD. Your DVR and router runs Linux. The internet runs on *nix. Netflix runs on FreeBSD. Air traffic control, too, as does your refrigerator (maybe). And on and on.

Linux is a professional operating system and some are trying to make it usable for the average user like Windows. This has not happened yet for many users and technical know-how about the OS is quite helpful.

Linux is also just different and some have problems because they aren't used to how things are done. Sometimes problems occur when a user thinks something works the same as on Windows. (In reality, Windows is usually the outlier in the operating system world.) Reinstalling is a great learning experience :) but it's no different than trying and learning anything new for the first time.

My business runs on FreeBSD with a little Linux on the side so my advice is limited but, from what I hear and what I've seen, you might be more successful with Mint. Mint is built on Ubuntu but is easier on users. I don't know beyond installing it in a VM a few weeks ago.

The only Windows computer we have is an old box stuck in the corner that we only use for Quickbooks and testing web sites in IE. We have to reinstall Windows every year cause it bogs down so badly it becomes unusable. It, too, gets totally unexplained hiccups.

Unless it's a bug, as mentioned above, if printing didn't work on Linux or Ubuntu, then everyone would be having the problem and no one would be using it.

People still print?

Amusing that I run Linux machines but I've never printed from one yet The closest I've come is sending a PDF file created on Linue to a Windows PC for printing.

Except for the desktop, your world runs on Linux/Unix/BSD.

You mean except for WINDOWS desktops.

PCInk - After installing for the first time it is important to update ALL the packages offered - the installation package is already out of date as soon as it's available - and to update BEFORE installing extra software, which quite possibly relies on the latest version of already-installed software. This applies to all installations, windows as well as linux and others; the difference with windows is they do not make the updates available until a Tuesday and then only once a month.

Personally I would always clean the machine before installing a brand new OS (and especially before re-installing due to failure), keeping only the data files.

As I noted above, I dumped ubuntu 12 soon after installing it on a clean machine. After several years using ubuntu, from 7 on, I just could not get to grips with 12. So, wipe clean and install Mint.

On the other hand, I got Mint up a running in only a few hours, including updating and a general installtion of my "essential" software (ie stuff I need to do my job AND to play music and videos) and have been using it ever since, every day for several hours a day. I still have ubuntu two machines but they will be Mint soon.

You mean except for WINDOWS desktops.

No, I meant the desktop market which is monopolized by Windows but, as I said, I haven't used Windows for my own computing in 9 years.

Well, I eventually managed to get this working.

Ubuntu suggests two printer drivers and Epson suggest two as well (they are probably the same two). Neither of them will work with dovecot and samba installed. They seem to work if dovecot or samba is installed. It seems any two out of the three will install but the last will always fail with "broken packages" messages.

I found a generic driver on the Epson website. It supports several hundred printers, including many not listed yet by Ubuntu and it worked first time. The driver supports a limited range of printer options but it prints.

How do I suggest this driver to the Ubuntu team to add to the suggested printer drivers?

People still print?

Yes. Especially people that do ecommerce. Printing labels for couriers and addresses for posted items is the bulk of the printing but necessary.

Except for the desktop, your world runs on Linux/Unix/BSD. Your DVR and router runs Linux. The internet runs on *nix. Netflix runs on FreeBSD. Air traffic control, too, as does your refrigerator (maybe). And on and on.

The DVR and fridge may run Linux but that is due to cost rather than quality. In comparison to anything Microsoft offer, both the OS and the CPU will be cheaper if they run something like Linux. Cost is the reason manufacturers use it, not necessarily quality.

It just seems everything in Linux has been made deliberately more difficult to use than it could be. I don't know if it is a trend but I am seeing the same thing happening in lots of other technology systems usually at the expense of 'looking pretty'.

The DVR and fridge may run Linux but that is due to cost rather than quality.

You can't fit Windows into an embedded device and if the OS can't do the job, cost doesn't matter. There are other OSes that can be had for cheap or free, too.

In comparison to anything Microsoft offer, both the OS and the CPU will be cheaper if they run something like Linux. Cost is the reason manufacturers use it, not necessarily quality.

The cost of the CPU has nothing to do with the operating system unless you mean the computer itself. The reason a Windows box may cost more is because Windows is inefficient and needs more processing power to perform the same task as Linux/Unix/BSD.

It just seems everything in Linux has been made deliberately more difficult to use than it could be.

To the contrary, The Unix Philosophy is to do one thing and do it well and that is true in all things Unix and Unix-like. Every tool in *nix is simple to use and interchangeable with anything else and ultimately customizable. This is not true in any way with Windows.

I don't know if it is a trend but I am seeing the same thing happening in lots of other technology systems usually at the expense of 'looking pretty'.

A lot of people are trying to make technology easier to use for non-tech people. Like Windows 8. But Linux/Unix/BSD can run something just as pretty or run everything from the command line. It's your choice.

*nix is used when real computing is needed because it's the superior operating system. It's easy to get anything to run on it and it's portable among systems. It can be a big system, like most of the world's fastest computers, or very small and can interface to anything (if the manufacturer supplies the driver).

For example, I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and had a document on my office computer. It was in a format that couldn't be read on the Linux notebook I had because it was a custom program. What I did was 'ssh -Y myprogram @123.12.12.123'. That line connected my notebook over the internet to my office computer, started up the custom program and then opened the document I wanted while viewing it in the GUI on my screen as if it were running on my notebook. You can't do that on Windows (and it is NOT the same as 'remote desktop').

You may have missed what I said. Windows is used on desktop computers. It's virtually absent in every other computing environment in the world. That is where Linux/Unix/BSD are and we find it easier to use and superior in every way.

In comparison to anything Microsoft offer, both the OS and the CPU will be cheaper if they run something like Linux.

Windows licences are cheap for manufacturers. I do not see how it makes a difference to CPU cost (except where it is heavier, as another poster said).

There is another thread complaining about Ubuntu 12.04, and other people seem to have run into a lot of problems with broken packages.

I ran into a problem with wireless networking on 11.10 and had spent a good few hours dredging through solutions... it reminded me of this thread. Fixed now though. I could have continued doing my work on Windows (XP) but I guess we each have our biases.

I think the problem is this... A developer will get noticed by writing a great application, not for writing great documentation. All to often under linux it is assumed the user already has an understanding of the OS.

This problem is exasperated by the package managers. You choose to install something, it automatically selects software depenancies, yet no documentation, even if it exists on the tree.

Mack.

I remember 3 months spent at university learning C programming, they used a unix based network, as edu's do and at the end of the 3 months, I was okay on C , but none the wiser on unix :)

I latter tried multiboot linux for maybe 6 month on free distrib of linux, and it was . 6 months of hours spent figuring how to make either the printer or the modem work after which, there wasn't much time left for anything else, fascinating, but I had to surrender :)

I am delighted to use linux on web servers where someone else is managing it tho :)