Epson ET-4500 printer support

I loaded Budgie on my wife’s older iMac because it looks and feels similar to Mac OS. I was surprised to learn that I can’t get it to work with our Epson ET-4500, which is one of the more popular printers on the market. I tried downloading all the drivers and still no joy.

I had recently converted my desktop PC from Windows to Linux Mint and both the printer and scanner functions of the ET-4500 worked right out of “box”.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to get the printer working with Budgie? I’d prefer to keep her iMac on Budgie, but I’m a noob with Linux and there’s a limit to how much time and frustration I want to expend to make it work with the printer.

Any suggestions?

Have you followed a guide like this? Installation of an Epson ET-4500 printer on Ubuntu Linux | g3yjr

Yes, I did - which is not to say I did everything correctly.

ok - this does sound like a generic issue that definitely deserves a wider audience.

askubuntu.com and ubuntuforums.org should also be used to pose a question. Do ensure you say exactly what you have tried - copy paste the results of your efforts in the terminal/screenshots etc so that everyone has a better idea and maybe help if they spot an issue that you may have overlooked.

Thanks for the suggestion, but isn’t this a Budgie-specific issue?

Mint is based on ubuntu and it worked with the clean install.

Mint is not Ubuntu - its a mistake people often make.

And no - peripherals are common through Debian/Ubuntu - its not an official specific flavour issue.

What happens is that the Mint developers sometimes makes changes/bundle stuff together that they do not share back to Debian and/or Ubuntu. This is probably one of those areas.

We have also seen the reverse situation (many many times actually) - stuff that works under Debian/Ubuntu but does not work under Mint. It is for this reason why we cannot support derivatives like Mint & Tuxedo because of the unknown changes they make.

I see.

Since I’m not yet invested in any distro, I’ll likely take the path of least resistance.

Thanks for your help.

FYI - I suspect this is the key package that provides epson printer support

sudo apt install printer-driver-gutenprint