Comment 105 for bug 35638

dracon:
The thing is, this bug is about has nothing to do with hal (if you read earlier comments like https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/35638/comments/77 you will even see me saying the output of the hal backend is fine for me) or parallel -> usb cables. I don't doubt that the end result looks the same but the cause is different. Really it's about (Brother) printers with broken (built into the printer) USB implementations. CUPS only "recently" (around Gutsy era) gained a hal backend and I first filed this issue back in the Dapper days (which pre-dates the hal backend by at least a year).

CUPS's USB backend has nothing to do with hal. I do not know what CUPS currently uses its hal backend for (perhaps to save on polling or announce the arrival of new printers to interested programs) but I believe in your case it is a red herring. The hal backend might well not be working for you but from what has been said I don't think this is your real problem (as the hal patches are apparently not even carried by upstream cups). If you REALLY want to talk to the developers of the hal cups backend you can try the project Utopia list ( http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/utopia-list ) but if you do that I'd make absolutely sure that the real problem is the CUPS hal backend and not something else. Personally I think you will learn more by filing a new bug on http://cups.org/login.php?PAGE=/str.php?U0+P0+S-2+C0+I0+E0+M10+Q and carefully (but concisely) explaining the issue you have and seeing what the response is even if it is "we won't spend more time on such cables or printers that use them".

The fact that Windows works just suggests it identifies printers a different way (without depending entirely on deviceid strings). Maybe it ties up a port entirely but that discussion would be really better off in a separate bug report as any discussion here will only confuse people as to the purpose of this bug report (bugs.launchpad.net isn't suited to forum discussions).