Yeah, openprinting.org saved my bacon too. The .ppd files that came on the CD-ROM with my printer were for PostScript printers, which my printer is not.
At first I went to the manufacturer's website and got a .ppd for it there. But this one didn't pass the CUPS' cupstestppd program, and it also didn't work right.
Then I dug into the Rube Goldberg machine jggimi referred to and made a kluge to get it working, but wasn't happy with it. Finally I found a good .ppd file on openprinting.org. I am still using CUPS with Linux, and foomatic direct on NetBSD.