11.10 doesn't see my USB printer

[David Shochat]

I have an Epson Stylus Photo R300 connected via USB which has been
trouble-free with many previous versions of Ubuntu. But when I tried
printing to it after upgrading to 11.10, it said it was off or
disconnected (it was neither). So I tried deleting it and re-adding
it. I selected Printers from the Session indicator menu and then Add.
I'm getting the impression from what I've read that at this point, I
should see my printer show up in the list of devices. Isn't that
correct? All I get are 4 choices:
LPT #1 (for parallel)
Serial Port #1
Enter URI
Network Printer
I've double and triple checked that my printer is plugged into a USB
socket. Isn't there a way to get a low-level list of connected
devices? One interesting thing: In the session (indicator) menu, just
above Printers, there's an item labeled "Attached Devices" but it is
grayed out. I know the USB subsystem is Ok since I have a USB storage
device and that is working fine.

In /etc/cups, printers.conf is empty (except 3 comments) but
printers.conf.0 (dated 2009!) seems to know all about my printer.
-- David