yes, i use the old cup.tcz extension, and it seems to behave adequately with the hitches mentionned in my post; i tried the new one, but after spending 3 hours to configure and reconfigure the (usb) printer with cups and lp without success, i gave out; with the new extension, my problem was:
1. cupsd started as expected;
2. lsusb see the printer
3. i use a ppd file and have had no problem with the configuration of the printer with cups frontend;
but: i tried to print, cups stores the job, but didn't print anything; i think that it can't read the usb port, but didn't investigate further.