Installing an Epson Multifunction Printer on Arch Linux and Derivatives

Adding the Multi-function Printer

After installation of the printer software, adding the multi-function printer was trivial on the Plasma desktop. All that was necessary was to open the Printers module of Plasma System Settings and click Add Printer. If the printer is on the same network as the computer, it will show in the list of available printers under the section Discovered Network Printers in the dialog window that opens after clicking Add Printer. Depending on the Arch derivative, an option that indicates the printer without using drivers may be available in the list. I chose the option that does not indicate "driverless".

After the selection, clicking Next allows selection of the driver to use. The official Epson driver ESC/P-R will be among those that can be chosen.

Network Scanning Configuration

The Image Scan scanning software and its network scanning plugin, will require configuration in order for network scanning to work. The configuration file owned by the imagescan package, of ini format, should be in /etc/utsushi (utsushi is the name of the is the GitLab account that contains the EPSON scanning software repository). When I installed the EPSON software the first time on the Dell G5 in mid-2021, the directory contained the single file utsushi.conf; more recently after installing on the Lenovo LEGION 5i Pro, this directory contains a sample, commented configuration file, utsushi.conf.sample and another configuration file, the replacement for utsushi.conf, combo.conf which can be used to set a configuration for all EPSON devices which are not automatically detected.

As explained in the sample configuration file, each EPSON device that is not auto-detected and is to be configured in a file at this location requires what is called a udi, presumably for Universal Device Identifier. Parameter names in the configuration file are qualifed by an arbitrary key prefix used to group parameters which apply to a specific device, or it can be used as a section name. The udi parameter value identifies a driver, a connection class, and a string that depends on the other two components, separated by colons (:). For a network connection the, the sample configuration file contains the line

dev2.udi = esci:networkscan://192.168.0.2:1865

So for me, after identifying the printer's IP address, in /etc/utsushi/utsushi.conf on the Dell, and /etc/utsushi/combo.conf, it was necessary to use the correct IP address for the printer on my local network, by ensuring the file contained the lines shown in the following listing under the [devices] section of the configuration file.

dev2.udi    = esci:networkscan://192.168.1.132:1865
dev2.model  = WF-4740
dev2.vendor = EPSON
dev2.name = EPSON Multi-Function

In the listing, dev2 is the arbitrary key prefix to group all of the parameters for a single device, esci is the driver identification, networkscan is the connection class, and the remaining portion identifies the network location of the printer and the port. The other parameters are optional and are used to generate strings in the GUI. The dev2 prefix, as mentioned before is completely arbitrary and a different prefix could be used. For details see the sample configuration file.

systemd Services

In addition to the systemd service cups.service necessary for some computer-printer interfaces, the service ecbd.service is also necessary for the Epson Printer Utility. It can be enabled and started with:

sudo systemctl --now enable ecbd.service

If the service is not necessary to run continuously after each boot, it can be started only when the printer utility is to be used with:

sudo systemctl start ecbd.service

and to stop it immediately after using the printer utility:

sudo systemctl stop ecbd.service

Conclusion

Although many distributions have generic drivers that can enable functionality of printers and multi-function printers, more functionality can be realized by installing the manufacturer's drivers and software. The AUR provides the Epson software that allows users to easily install the necessary software without resorting the more complex steps required for installing from packages obtained from the manufacturer's site to offer complete functionality of the device -- with the exception of Epson PC-Fax software. (Although for more mainstream distributions with more common package formats, prebuilt packages are available from Epson.)

The installation of official Epson printer driver and utility software is simple on Arch and its derivatives as long as the system is configured optimally, for example, in order to avoid the problem with the yay cache directory being to small to build complex packages, such as Qt 4, a necessary dependency of the Epson software. All that is necessary is to install three AUR packages, epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2, imagescan-plugin-networkscan, and epson-printer-utility.