Creating DeviceURI usb printer aliases that are more generic, for CUPS 1.4

[Mark Carroll]

Using Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) with printer installation through CUPS 
my /etc/cups/printers.conf has a very non-generic DeviceURI that encodes 
the printer make and model. I am creating a image of the machine for 
netbooting others and I'd like to find a way to write printers.conf with 
a much more generic DeviceURI.

I have tried doing things like adding a udev rule,
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", 
ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACES}==":0701*:", SYMLINK+="usb-lp"
and changing the DeviceURI to that file instead, but it doesn't print, 
nor does /dev/usb/lp0. I've also tried blacklisting the usblp module to 
see if that makes any difference.

How can I have set things up so that printers.conf doesn't have to refer 
to the device by its make and model but can just work with any printer 
that uses the same PPD?

If this is explained in a FAQ/HOWTO somewhere that I've missed, of 
course just point me to that, I haven't found it yet though.

Mark

-- 
Mark Carroll
Software Engineer
mark.carroll at vecna.com
http://www.vecna.com/

Cambridge Research Laboratory
Vecna Technologies, Inc.
36 Cambridge Park Drive
Cambridge, MA 02140
Phone: (617) 864-0636
Fax: (617) 864-0638

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