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I would like to use a Samsung multifunction laser printer as a local, USB-connected printer, from a recently-installed Parrot Security 5.3 OS, a security-hardened version of Debian. The Samsung Universal Print & Scan Driver v.1 for Linux is provided via the HP website (HP now services Samsung printers) and is installed by executing a shell script. The driver requires CUPS to be installed, so I first successfully installed CUPS and then successfully installed the Samsung printer driver. The terminal informed me that both the CUPS backend (for the printer driver) and the SANE backend (for the scan driver) were successfully registered and both cups and udev successfully started and that the installation was successful. Since this is a local, cable-connected printer and not a network printer, I did not ask the shell script to configure the firewall. (Parrot considers CUPS to be a security risk and therefore disables it by default, however it works properly when the service is started.)

My problem is that the printer is nowhere recognized when I plug in the cable: no system scanning for drivers, etc. When I verified with the CUPS web interface whether any printer was recognized, there wasn't any printer that was recognized. However I am reluctant to use the CUPS web interface since its localhost:631 interface uses http only, and not https, which I consider to be antediluvian in today's world. An additional problem is that the MATE System Control Center used by Parrot OS does not seem to have a specific panel for printers, as Ubuntu seems to have.I still don't understand why CUPS does not recognize the printer driver despite having been successfully integrated into the CUPS backend (same for scan driver).

I also tried to install gutenprint drivers to see if my printer would recognize them. Unfortunately, Parrot OS does not allow me to install them due to unmet dependency issues (but that is a different problem) - so no gutenprint.

Could anyone please help me on how I could get my system to recognize the printer/ scanner without using CUPS over an unsecured web interface?

Please know that I am new to Linux, so please be precise in your answers so that I can look something up if I don't understand it.

Thanks a bundle !

LinuxFan
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  • Before you call the concept of the loopback address old-fashioned (I had to google antediluvian). I think you need to lookup the concept of the loopback address. The reason it's considered secure even without the s is because the traffic never leaves the client machine. CUPS is configured as a Local Print Server Out of the Box, so the localhost:port address is valid. Before the system can see the printer, you must add the installed drivers to said print server in the interface you refuse to use. – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 16:12
  • RedHat's excellent documentation on adding a Printer. Note that the Distributions are agnostic here, as the CUPS interface operates the same across all Distributions. As you can see, you can also configure CUPS to support Port 443, which will enable the s. – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 16:27
  • eyoung 100, thanks for your valuable comments and help. As I am new to Linux, I wasn't aquainted with loopback addresses or even CUPS. I had been running Ubuntu out of the box flawlessly for 11 years - including with that same printer - and never needed to configure anything. However I have learned that default installations of Ubuntu are not security-hardened and after Rich Stallman's comments about user privacy on Ubuntu, I looked for more secure and private distros, but am now facing a huge learning curve... I will try what you suggested and report back here what I found. Thanks again ! – LinuxFan Jan 18 '24 at 17:30
  • If you really want to learn an agnostic approach to Linux , have a look at Gerard Beekman's Linux from Scratch. Although the approach is daunting it will "teach you linux" not just how to use the package manager. Do you happen to have a link to Stallman's comments? – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 17:35
  • Also, have a look at this question:Why do different Linux distros have different package formats (and package managers)? and my answer as a starting point to your learning curve. I don't normally try to promote my own answers, but it will give a bit of a history lesson with the picture. – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 17:49
  • Linux from scratch sounds fantastic. I don't mind daunting - I consider Parrot OS quite daunting because it is not very well documented, but I am committed to learning. Re. Stallman's statements, here is one https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/richard-stallman-calls-ubuntu-spyware-because-it-tracks-searches/ but, as I am perusing different security and privacy-hardened distros (Whonix, Kodachi, PureOS, Parrot...) I just realize how much these systems differ from plain-vanilla Ubuntu and that most distros still need to be hardened before they're really secure... – LinuxFan Jan 18 '24 at 17:55
  • Thanks for the link on package managers, which I was sort of familiar with. But am I understanding you correctly that you don't support compiling packages from scratch as in reproducible builds? I thought that this was one of the best ways to ensure package integrity. although I am not familiar how reproducible builds handle dependency issues. I would naively surmise that dependencies would be included in reproducible builds... And thanks again for Linux from scratch! It will eventually help me build something like Whonix on Kodachi, but without Kodachi's many security flaws... hopefully ! – LinuxFan Jan 18 '24 at 18:23
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    Learn plain Debian. Install plain Debian on a machine where you are free to experiment. Once you've learned Debian, all of it's family members will make sense. You'll realize that Parrot is just Debian + some Security – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 18:26
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    The whole point of the Package Manager post was to point out a few things: 1. All linux distros start from source at some point. 2 I don't support compiling outside of a distros package manager because the package manager handles the dependencies. You'll learn what a headache dependency management is in Gerrard's book(s). 3. I do support compiling when it's the only available option. The writer of that question had other choices but due to customer's hosting constraints he was "stuck." – eyoung100 Jan 18 '24 at 18:33

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