Local printers not supported

[Michael Hirsch]

I'm trying to help my Dad with a problem.  He's using KDE 3.5.x and
his USB printer stopped working.  He can see the printer with "lsusb"
so it would appear that USB works, but when he tries to add the
printer with the KDE Add Printer Wizard, the choice "Local printer
(parallel, serial, USB)" is deactivated.  He can't press the radio
button to enable it.  The other radio buttons are all active except
for "Serial Fax/Modem printer".

What can deactivate that button.  It happens on both his and my Mom's
systems, but they are running the same software, so that doesn't
narrow things down, much.

My machine is running the same software, too, and it is enabled for
me.  I can't figure out what he could be missing to turn off local
printer support.

His OS is Ubuntu Jaunty with the semi-official KDE 3.5 installed.

Thanks,

Michael