Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk 

| But … they're inside your router's firewall? Sure, they dial out for updates
| sometimes, but what doesn't?

Depending on a single firewall isn't considered good form.
Each machine should be hardened too.  Otherwise your network is
crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.

This matters less in simple home networks.  But it is still a good idea if 
some of your other devices have security you cannot trust (eg. smart 
phones with apps that have some chance of being evil).  Windows 10 and 
most Linux distros have some hardening on each node.  I don't know or 
trust printers.

I don't remember the details, but we know that an HP Printer in
Saddam's Iraq was secretly working for the NSA.---
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2020-06-04 10:51 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:


I don't like putting printers on my network.  …   They don't have a
firewall that I can examine and configure.


But … they're inside your router's firewall? Sure, they dial out for 
updates sometimes, but what doesn't?


The one disadvantage of AirPrint - if you want to control access - is 
that anyone on your network can print at any time. So if you're lining 
up a special job on special paper, you better let other folks know first.


 Stewart

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk 

| On 2020-06-03 2:21 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:

| > Why this
| > is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't
| > say
| 
| There's much less software between you and the printer when you use IPP. Much
| less to go wrong.

Thanks Stewart!

I don't like putting printers on my network.  Sure, it is convenient.
But I don't control their network security.  They don't have a
firewall that I can examine and configure.  They are rather
promiscuous.

IPv6 could make this worse since it eliminates the security crutch of
NAT.  Any good firewall should catch this.

When it comes to a choice between convenience and security, you can
guess what wins.  One of our printers is on our LAN.
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2020-06-03 2:21 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:

Thanks to the write-up from Stewart, I managed to print to the HP 1102w
printer by disconnecting USB and using wireless IPP protocol.


Yay! I'm glad this worked for you. I was hoping my walkthrough would be 
useful, and was worried it just came across as unhelpful



Why this
is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't
say


There's much less software between you and the printer when you use IPP. 
Much less to go wrong.


cheers,
 Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[John Sellens via talk]

I think "falsisign" looks like fun:

FalsiScan: Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
https://gitlab.com/edouardklein/falsisign

You scan and save a bunch of signatures.  Then the code
modifies the original PDF to look scanned and puts a random
signature where you say to put it.

John

On Wed, 2020/06/03 03:04:14PM -0400, Scott Allen via talk  
wrote:
| "sign it --> scan it back in" steps
| 
| I use a Wacom tablet to do the signing.
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Scott Allen via talk]

On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 at 14:51, Scott Allen  wrote:
> and you still save the initial "print the form --> sign it" steps.

That should have been
"sign it --> scan it back in" steps

I use a Wacom tablet to do the signing.

-- 
Scott
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Scott Allen via talk]

On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 at 14:21, Peter King via talk  wrote:
> (Doing admin
> work I often am in the cycle of getting forms to sign via email --> print
> the form --> sign it --> scan it back in --> send back via email.)

If your forms are in PDF format, and you don't actually need an exact
physical copy with the signature in ink, you could look into using
Xournal.
http://xournal.sourceforge.net/

Use the "Annotate PDF" feature to sign the PDF by using the pen tool,
or the image tool to import a previously made signature image. You can
scale and move the signature to get it where you want it. Use "Export
to PDF" to create a new PDF of the form with your signature merged in.
You only need to print if you want your own hard copy of the document,
and you still save the initial "print the form --> sign it" steps.

-- 
Scott
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Peter King via talk]

Thanks to the write-up from Stuart, I managed to print to the HP 1102w
printer by disconnecting USB and using wireless IPP protocol.  Why this
is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't
say, but at least I have a way to print from linux now.  (Doing admin
work I often am in the cycle of getting forms to sign via email --> print
the form --> sign it --> scan it back in --> send back via email.)

-- 
Peter King  peter.k...@utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto  (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
   CANADA

http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Lennart Sorensen via talk]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 12:46:16AM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:
> I've given up printing from Linux.  I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the
> file from Linux, then print from there.  Always works.

Hmm, I had not printed from linux in a long time, so I thought I
would try.  Printed a test page postscript file perfectly first try.
So at least my epson WF4630 has no problem with printing from linux
(appears to be using ESC-P/R driver in cups).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2020-06-01 9:23 a.m., Peter King via talk wrote:


Brother advertises "PostScript 3 Emulation" which I thought was code for
using Ghostscript or whatever.


I just checked: the Brother MFC-L2750DW I have *does* claim to have 
BR-Script3 and PCL6, but IPP doesn't need to use it. CUPS will usually 
convert PostScript to PDF in the print process anyway, so BR-Script3 
doesn't add anything.


Your Lexmark claims to support IPP. This will only work if you're 
talking to it over a network. Direct USB connection brings problems. 
*Some* IPP printers support IPP over USB, and the ippusbxd or ipp-usb 
daemons enable it. I don't know if this is supported by your printer.


Can you find your printer via IPP? Try:

$ ippfind
ipp://BRWD89C6730425A.local:631/ipp/print

I get that from my Brother printer. To find what formats your printer 
supports, try ipptool with the URL returned above and one of the system 
test scripts:


$ ipptool -vt ipp://BRWD89C6730425A.local:631/ipp/print 
get-printer-attributes.test | grep document-format-supported
document-format-supported (1setOf mimeMediaType) = 
application/octet-stream,image/urf,image/pwg-raster


So I see my printer only accepts the two CUPS/IPP raster formats. That's 
fine: better to do the rasterization inside a fast desktop than rely on 
some PS/PDF RIP of unknown capability in your printer.


It looks like cups 2.3.3-1 for Arch includes ippfind and ipptool, and 
requires/includes Avahi for printer discovery.


I wish I could help more. Printing now is genuinely "forget everything". 
It's not like I'm accepting lower-quality printing with IPP, either.


cheers,
 Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[John Moniz via talk]

Thanks for the write-up Stewart, very useful for a non-admin home user like me.

John.

> 
> -- Original Message --
> From: "Stewart C. Russell via talk" 
> Date: June 1, 2020 at 12:20 PM
> 
> 
> On 2020-06-01 10:14 a.m., Christopher Browne via talk wrote:
> >
> > But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that
> > "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.
> >
> > Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a
> > thing?
> 
> I don't think so. Since all printers (except cheap USB-only disposable
> ones) need to print over wireless from an iPad/iPhone, it's got much
> simpler. Different, yes, but simpler for the user.
> 
> I've got a 2012-vintage Epson WorkForce WF7520 large-format inkjet AiO.
> It supports wireless and IPP v1.0. I've also got a 2019 Brother
> MFC-L2750DW. It supports wireless and AirPrint (aka IPP v2.0, pretty
> much). Both are auto-discovered by all my (non-embedded) Linux systems,
> and I don't need any drivers. The entire installation process of the
> Brother went like this:
> 
> 1) unpack from box;
> 2) remove packing materials;
> 3) install toner and paper;
> 4) plug in power;
> 5) join wireless network from front panel.
> 
> By the time I got downstairs from where I'd installed the printer, all
> the computers in the house had found the new printer and added it as a
> device. This includes an Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu laptop, a couple of
> Macs, a Windows 10 machine, two Raspberry Pis and an iPad. The only
> thing that needed a little work was my Android phone, but that wasn't
> any more than "Find printer" then say yes to the Brother printer driver.
> 
> All of this is made possible by three technologies:
> 
> 1) CUPS
> 2) Bonjour (mDNS/DNS-SD, typically Avahi under Linux)
> 3) IPP
> 
> Bonjour announces that the printer's there, IPP negotiates the printer's
> capabilities, and CUPS sends the data in the right format. If even one
> of these three is missing, it's endless fighting and pain.
> 
> The Debian packages I have on my desktop system(s) that enable this are:
> 
> avahi-autoipd avahi-daemon avahi-utils cups
> cups-browsed cups-bsd cups-client cups-common
> cups-core-drivers cups-daemon cups-filters
> cups-filters-core-drivers cups-ipp-utils cups-pk-helper
> cups-ppdc cups-server-common printer-driver-cups-pdf
> printer-driver-gutenprint system-config-printer
> system-config-printer-common system-config-printer-udev
> 
> Most of these are installed automatically. I think I had to add
> cups-ipp-utils, system-config-printer and (oddly) cups to make this work
> seamlessly on the Raspberry Pis.
> 
> * I don't strictly need avahi-autoipd and avahi-utils; the Raspberry Pis
> do fine without them.
> 
> * cups-bsd is only needed if your fingers automatically type 'lpr -P'
> instead of 'lp -d', as mine do.
> 
> * printer-driver-cups-pdf isn't necessary, but gives you print to PDF
> from everywhere. Since CUPS puts every print job into PDF anyway, this
> is just a *really* fancy wrapper around 'cat'.
> 
> * printer-driver-gutenprint gives a bit more control to colour printing
> for those rare times I need things to be really fiddly. I could do
> without for 99% of print jobs.
> 
> All the above did pretty much require me to forget everything I thought
> I knew about printer admin. I'm glad I don't need that any more.
> 
> cheers,
> Stewart
> 
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2020-06-01 10:14 a.m., Christopher Browne via talk wrote:


But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that
"with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.

Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a
thing?


I don't think so. Since all printers (except cheap USB-only disposable 
ones) need to print over wireless from an iPad/iPhone, it's got much 
simpler. Different, yes, but simpler for the user.


I've got a 2012-vintage Epson WorkForce WF7520 large-format inkjet AiO. 
It supports wireless and IPP v1.0. I've also got a 2019 Brother 
MFC-L2750DW. It supports wireless and AirPrint (aka IPP v2.0, pretty 
much). Both are auto-discovered by all my (non-embedded) Linux systems, 
and I don't need any drivers. The entire installation process of the 
Brother went like this:


1) unpack from box;
2) remove packing materials;
3) install toner and paper;
4) plug in power;
5) join wireless network from front panel.

By the time I got downstairs from where I'd installed the printer, all 
the computers in the house had found the new printer and added it as a 
device. This includes an Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu laptop, a couple of 
Macs, a Windows 10 machine, two Raspberry Pis and an iPad. The only 
thing that needed a little work was my Android phone, but that wasn't 
any more than "Find printer" then say yes to the Brother printer driver.


All of this is made possible by three technologies:

1) CUPS
2) Bonjour (mDNS/DNS-SD, typically Avahi under Linux)
3) IPP

Bonjour announces that the printer's there, IPP negotiates the printer's 
capabilities, and CUPS sends the data in the right format. If even one 
of these three is missing, it's endless fighting and pain.


The Debian packages I have on my desktop system(s) that enable this are:

  avahi-autoipd avahi-daemon avahi-utils cups
  cups-browsed cups-bsd cups-client cups-common
  cups-core-drivers cups-daemon cups-filters
  cups-filters-core-drivers cups-ipp-utils cups-pk-helper
  cups-ppdc cups-server-common printer-driver-cups-pdf
  printer-driver-gutenprint system-config-printer
  system-config-printer-common system-config-printer-udev

Most of these are installed automatically. I think I had to add 
cups-ipp-utils, system-config-printer and (oddly) cups to make this work 
seamlessly on the Raspberry Pis.


* I don't strictly need avahi-autoipd and avahi-utils; the Raspberry Pis 
do fine without them.


* cups-bsd is only needed if your fingers automatically type 'lpr -P' 
instead of 'lp -d', as mine do.


* printer-driver-cups-pdf isn't necessary, but gives you print to PDF 
from everywhere. Since CUPS puts every print job into PDF anyway, this 
is just a *really* fancy wrapper around 'cat'.


* printer-driver-gutenprint gives a bit more control to colour printing 
for those rare times I need things to be really fiddly. I could do 
without for 99% of print jobs.


All the above did pretty much require me to forget everything I thought 
I knew about printer admin. I'm glad I don't need that any more.


cheers,
 Stewart

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[James Knott via talk]

On 2020-06-01 10:14 AM, Christopher Browne via talk wrote:

At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much
fraught with troubles.  Those were the days of WinModems and
WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by
making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm)


Back in those days, I was running OS/2 and knew enough to avoid those 
Winmodems and printers.


BTW, I also had a FAX modem, so I faxed myself a sheet that I signed 
several times.  I could then paste my signature on documents which would 
then be faxed out again.  Back then I was using Faxworks and Post Road 
Mailer, which worked very well together, for handling faxes & email.  
For example, I could fax to email or a received fax could automagically 
be emailed out.  Or a received email could be sent out via fax.  I 
essentially had a fax server.  This was way back in the mid - late 90's.


There were a lot of things that could be done in OS/2 that I have not 
seen elsewhere.


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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Mauro Souza via talk]

I have a Deskjet 2130 that I paid pennies for, and it works on my Ubuntu,
works on a RedHat Enterprise Linux, works on the chromebooks... It's my
first printer in a lng time, because now I have kids in the school and
a printer is essential, but I usually never had issues with CUPS.

Mauro
http://mauro.limeiratem.com - registered Linux User: 294521
Scripture is both history, and a love letter from God.


Em seg., 1 de jun. de 2020 às 11:15, Christopher Browne via talk <
talk@gtalug.org> escreveu:

> On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 at 09:26, Peter King via talk  wrote:
>
>> Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just
>> give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort.
>> There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes.
>>
>
> I guess I'm surprised a bit by this; my experiences have some parallels
> and non-parallels...
>
> Once upon a time, I did really scary printer hacking, had a project where
> I built a component that would put bitmaps of peoples' signatures into
> documents in a print queue so that printed reports would have the
> Lovely Signatures.  There was a step weirder; one of the print queues
> went to a fax machine, as the task was sending price sheets out to
> customers (with the Lovely Signature at the bottom).  That was, like
> circa 1992.
>
> At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much
> fraught with troubles.  Those were the days of WinModems and
> WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by
> making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm)
>
> Then, some time in the 20-oughts, (after 2000), I encountered CUPS
> and had the "breath of fresh air" of it being pretty much dead easy to
> configure printer usage on Linux.  Each time I have gotten a new PC
> at work has been a point in time where I configured CUPS to talk to
> a couple of our printers.
>
> And my reaction, of late, has been, "It Just Works(tm)"   After the
> old scar tissue from the '90s, it has been just totally easy.   I kinda
> suspect I have had things Dialed To Easy, in view that what I'm
> inevitably connecting to are networked printers that were to a degree
> selected to be simple for our varied platform staff (a few Windows,
> quite a lot of MacOS, and quite a lot of Linux) to connect to, so
> that I'm not treading any ground that's new to anyone local.
>
> But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that
> "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.
>
> Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a
> thing?  I'm curious as to what may have worsened in the last few
> years.
> --
> When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
> question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
> ---
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Christopher Browne via talk]

On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 at 09:26, Peter King via talk  wrote:

> Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just
> give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort.
> There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes.
>

I guess I'm surprised a bit by this; my experiences have some parallels
and non-parallels...

Once upon a time, I did really scary printer hacking, had a project where
I built a component that would put bitmaps of peoples' signatures into
documents in a print queue so that printed reports would have the
Lovely Signatures.  There was a step weirder; one of the print queues
went to a fax machine, as the task was sending price sheets out to
customers (with the Lovely Signature at the bottom).  That was, like
circa 1992.

At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much
fraught with troubles.  Those were the days of WinModems and
WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by
making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm)

Then, some time in the 20-oughts, (after 2000), I encountered CUPS
and had the "breath of fresh air" of it being pretty much dead easy to
configure printer usage on Linux.  Each time I have gotten a new PC
at work has been a point in time where I configured CUPS to talk to
a couple of our printers.

And my reaction, of late, has been, "It Just Works(tm)"   After the
old scar tissue from the '90s, it has been just totally easy.   I kinda
suspect I have had things Dialed To Easy, in view that what I'm
inevitably connecting to are networked printers that were to a degree
selected to be simple for our varied platform staff (a few Windows,
quite a lot of MacOS, and quite a lot of Linux) to connect to, so
that I'm not treading any ground that's new to anyone local.

But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that
"with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.

Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a
thing?  I'm curious as to what may have worsened in the last few
years.
-- 
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Peter King via talk]

On Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 12:46:16AM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:

> I've given up printing from Linux.  I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the
> file from Linux, then print from there.  Always works.

Yeah, my workaround is to scp files over to MacOS and print from there,
which also works reliably and transparently, with no kerfuffle.

Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just
give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort.
There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes.

-- 
Peter King  peter.k...@utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto  (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
   CANADA

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Peter King via talk]

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 08:56:39PM -0400, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
 
> PostScript, in new printers, is extremely rare. Even Brother stopped doing
> BRSCRIPT a few years back. More of them speak PDF directly.

Brother advertises "PostScript 3 Emulation" which I thought was code for
using Ghostscript or whatever.  The problem with my Lexmark printer is that
it gags on lots of pdfs, including those generated from tex/xetex, which is
not acceptable.

-- 
Peter King  peter.k...@utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto  (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
   CANADA

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Peter King via talk]

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 07:12:33PM -0400, Dave Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
> 
>Ah yes, the "modem testing problem" redux.

Exactly!

>I've had good luck with an HP "Color LaserJetPro MFP M177fw", but I
>don't enjoy a system where you buy a printer and only then find out if
>you have to return it or not.

Agreed.  It's a scandal that something as basic as printing should still be
such a haphazard mess.

-- 
Peter King  peter.k...@utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto  (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
   CANADA

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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[William Park via talk]

I've given up printing from Linux.  I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the
file from Linux, then print from there.  Always works.
-- 
William Park 

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 06:23:38PM -0400, Peter King via talk wrote:
> Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay
> "The Luxury of Ignorance" 
> (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html),
> and things really haven't gotten any better.  Here's an update since I last
> posted about six weeks ago.
> 
> I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal
> memory went bad.  These things happen.  So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w
> which is no end of trouble; I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now
> not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports 
> "Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing
> udev rules to rebooting, makes it available.  So I bought another printer, a 
> Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly 
> with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting 
> out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to 
> the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts.  I
> won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and
> tried, and tried.
> 
> More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding
> in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn
> from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work,
> that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded 
> PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently 
> humble set of requirements.  You'd think.  If anyone on this list can 
> recommend 
> such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I 
> would be almost shamefully greatful.  Nearly as good would be cautions about
> what to avoid.  Thanks.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Kingpeter.k...@utoronto.ca
> Department of Philosophy
> 170 St. George Street #521
> The University of Toronto(416)-946-3170 ofc
> Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
>CANADA
> 
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
> 
> =
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> gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42



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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2020-05-31 6:23 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:


I'm considering buying something that should just work,
that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded
PostScript to handle my needs


PostScript, in new printers, is extremely rare. Even Brother stopped 
doing BRSCRIPT a few years back. More of them speak PDF directly.


I still don't understand why IPP didn't work. Very odd. It's the un-driver.

cheers,
 Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Dave Collier-Brown via talk]

On 2020-05-31 6:23 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:

Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay
"The Luxury of Ignorance" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html),
and things really haven't gotten any better.  Here's an update since I last
posted about six weeks ago.

I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal
memory went bad.  These things happen.  So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w
which is no end of trouble;

Ah yes, the "modem testing problem" redux.
I've had good luck with an HP "Color LaserJetPro MFP M177fw", but I don't enjoy 
a system where you buy a printer and only then find out if you have to return it or not.

--dave




I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now
not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports
"Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing
udev rules to rebooting, makes it available.  So I bought another printer, a
Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly
with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting
out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to
the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts.  I
won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and
tried, and tried.

More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding
in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn
from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work,
that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded
PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently
humble set of requirements.  You'd think.  If anyone on this list can recommend
such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I
would be almost shamefully greatful.  Nearly as good would be cautions about
what to avoid.  Thanks.





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--
David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
dave.collier-br...@indexexchange.com
 |  -- Mark Twain



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[GTALUG] Continuing Printer Woes

[Peter King via talk]

Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay
"The Luxury of Ignorance" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html),
and things really haven't gotten any better.  Here's an update since I last
posted about six weeks ago.

I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal
memory went bad.  These things happen.  So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w
which is no end of trouble; I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now
not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports 
"Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing
udev rules to rebooting, makes it available.  So I bought another printer, a 
Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly 
with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting 
out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to 
the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts.  I
won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and
tried, and tried.

More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding
in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn
from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work,
that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded 
PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently 
humble set of requirements.  You'd think.  If anyone on this list can recommend 
such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I 
would be almost shamefully greatful.  Nearly as good would be cautions about
what to avoid.  Thanks.

-- 
Peter King  peter.k...@utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto  (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON  M5R 2M8
   CANADA

http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/

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