The Linksys PSUS4 is a neat little print server that supports a single USB attached printer. Just one problem, it doesn’t work.
This device is one of those infuriating things that’s enough to put me off Linksys for good, despite some of their other products being excellent. The basic issue is that the IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) implementation is broken. It works from Windows because Linksys supply a driver to suit the device, but for proper IPP from Linux, it will print a single page in an unending loop.
This link to Redhat Bugzilla provides technical details of the problem. Whilst this is dated in Oct04, there are reports of the same problem going back to the PSUS4 release.
So why is it that a documented problem on a device with flashable firmare hasn’t been fixed after almost 2 years? I don’t know, but I’ve got a nice new one here if anyone wants to buy it, cos it’s bugger all use to me.
Keywords: psus4 cups linksys linux ipp
Your comments, Steve, (and those of others) reassure me that I’m not incompetent. I am also having difficulty getting the PSUS4 working, even in a Windows environment.
The print server is only recognised by the system when the printer is disconnected. Now does that make sense?
Ah, well, back to the drawing-board.
Okay, this works, but not through IPP, if you use cups and set the URL for the printer to:
lpd://192.168.XX.YY/name
it works. I’m using Fedora 4, and CUPS, with KDE.. works great now that I’m using this URL.
Same problem here. I’m still looking for anything to fix this.
In fact, when you shut down the printer, the psus4 turn off the USB light, but even if you reconnect the printer, the usb light is dead. You have to reboot the psus4…
I went the LPD route, and it also worked for me. I got the endless sample pages using IPP as well – it looked like my system was successfully sending the file, but the print server wasn’t responding, so the print queue resent it. In CUPS, I just chose LPD as the queue type, put in the IP address for the server name, and P1 as the server queue. Worked like a charm.
Same problems here with USB printer… not too much point to it if you need to keep rebooting it…
So, I basically have an expensive 4 port switch…
Anyone tried to port linux onto the thing? It would be nice to put a barebones linux distro on it and run a teamspeak server on it. At least then it would have some worth.
Gosh! You guys saved me a lot of nerves and money! Many thanks!! I just set up a samba/cups-printing-queue using 2 of those printservers and I am quite sure I wouldn’t have tried lpd if you hadn’t given me the idea! Shame on Linksys for that!
That barebone-idea is great ;-) Let me know if the work is done :oP
Regards
Peter
Hi.
I know this is not a support site, so please forgive me. But grasping the last of straws, this site actually mentions a solution to my problems. Can someone please point out how the solution is made. I have tried all possible ways that I can figure out, but either the printer prints a coupple of empty pages (using the LPD protocol) or gets stuck in the mentioned endless loop (using IPP/HTTP). I am driving the printserver with a CUPS server on SUSE 9.3. Please help.
Andréas,
All I can say is that it worked fine for me once I chose the IPP/HTTP route. Some report success, others failure. I hate to say it but Windows helped me considerably when I was trying to diagnose my problems. I configured a Raw printer and then let the driver in Windows handle the formatting. This enabled me to tell what problems were PSUS4 specific and which were CUPS driver issues.
I’ve got an HP DJ970CXi and appear to be lucky that the CUPS drivers for it are pretty good. I’ve seen other CUPS drivers choke on anything more complex than a text file. I think the PSUS4 has some awful glitches that Linksys can’t (read: refuse to) resolve, but perhaps not all the problems are attributable to it.
Using LPD instead of IPP seems to work just perfectly for me. Using the RTFM-interface found on
http://localhost:631/help/network.html
would have saved me lots of time and trouble, because it’s all written there:
Linksys PSUS4 lpd://address/lp
The Printer is a HP LaserJet 1200 and I’m using the Foomatic/pxlmono (recommended) driver that’s provided by CUPS.
I have other issues with the device. It prints fine – most of time time. But, every few days, it drags down everything attached to it. The fix is to reset the device by power-cycling it, and it works fine. But try explaining that to a family that doesn’t want to deal with it.
See – I’m blaming my family, and not the broken device. Compters are ruling the earth.
Had many problems getting installed w/ Windows, did the bi-install (whatever that means) and it worked for about 6 months, one day just suddenly started streaming or in a loop of some sort ’cause it takes my whole lan down. Unplug it, lan works again. Not a duplicate IP issue. Now I have a six month old brick and a bad taste from Linksys.
I’ve had a brick since I bought it and can’t figure out what to fix it with. No firmware on it at all