Let's start with the most basic.
Plug in your printer and power it up (not sure, but hoping for auto-detect for the following step).
Try installing/repairing the CUPS installation:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall cups
After that, try the following again to see if you have any Printers showing:
http://localhost:631/printers/
If no printers are showing, then you will need to use the OS built-in "service" for defining/configuring printers.
system-config-printer
You may also want to browse thru the following discussions to see what insights/tools you might discover which could be useful for your context: