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Printing a Linux NightmarePrinting a Linux NightmarePosted Feb 26, 2004 23:08 UTC (Thu) by vblum (guest, #1151)In reply to: Printing a Linux Nightmare by corbet Parent article: The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story (catb.org) Configure printers under SUSE, and the pains are gone. However, that is using YAST, not CUPS-shipped tools. Not free software, but will make Aunt Tillie happy enough. KDE's KDEprint is a true miracle. It just works. However, that comes after CUPS is already set up. I am mentioning it because SUSE has cunningly neglected to talk about CUPS passwords, and you can only fully use the KDEprint GUI after you have and know a CUPS password. Finding out about the password requires an act of ancient magic. Eric is describing a Fedora problem as far as I can tell. It doesn't sound as though he was using a CUPS-shipped tool in the first place. He's bashing the wrong people. He did find the CUPS GUI, though, it seems, which is html based and clean as far as I remember. How well does it work? I don't know.
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Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 26, 2004 23:18 UTC (Thu) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] One more: I think Eric's criticism is badly aimed.It is not only the developers of a project which need to ship proper docs. Much rather it is the fault of too many too fragmented distribution config tools which are written _instead_ of using the originally shipped GUI. Each distro replacing CUPS's default GUI with its homegrown one means (a) less exposure and bugfixing for the actual project The fact that we have a plethora of mutually inconsistent setup tools from each distro is a marketing disaster and a clear weakness of "Linux" as a whole.
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 1:38 UTC (Fri) by hijab (guest, #4134) [Link] I don't understand some of my friends. Many of them use Fedora/Redhat/etc and I hear stories like this about Samba, CUPS, etc..Yet they swear they will never use SUSE because of some horror story they've had. I've maintained 50 SUSE desktops (8.2 and 9.0 currently) and 2 SUSE servers for about 4 years now. My experience with printing: lpr was a nightmare, lprng was somewhat better, but when SUSE's implementation of CUPS arrived, it was like a breath of fresh air. Everything worked. Printing queues are set on the server,the clients just listen to the server, so no reconfig for them when modifying/adding a printer. Of course, I don't know maybe SUSE added some magic (YAST) that makes CUPS work (it was even able to read the manufacturer's printer pdd file off the CD-ROM), but it works and it works well. BTW, we use KDEprint all the time (even in non-KDE apps), but I never was confronted with a CUPS password or needed one, although I did have to add cupsd:localhost to the hosts.allow file at one point. Nobody says I have to use SUSE, nobody says I have to use Samba, nobody says I have to use CUPS. I have other things to do with my life, I don't want to constantly tinker with my systems. I find the consistency of KDE so appealing that I use konqueror more than 99% of the time, maybe mozilla the other 1%. I understand ESR's frustration; but, surely, having built his own masterpieces, he can appreciate the value of software like Samba and CUPS. Yes, perhaps the UI for CUPS is not ready for Aunt Tillie, but it sure is usable by me, and hence by the 300-odd people who rely on my systems. In case this needs to be said: Thank you CUPS for an outstanding piece of work.
cups password Posted Feb 27, 2004 1:53 UTC (Fri) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] SUSE 9.0 . If a user wishes to change the printer status from an incorrect "offline" to ready, that can be done using right-click on the printer in kdeprint. However, the action has no effect unless the user enters a valid cups password - which, by default, is different than the user's password.This is better than it used to be - to reset the printer status, editing something evil in /etc/cups/bla bla was a valid way out. No longer, thanks to kdeprint, but for the password, I had to read some man pages. Anyhow, CUPS works beautifully, but kdeprint really is a killer interface! _That_ really solved my Linux printing problems, in everyday use, which is much better than just the setup issue - it simply does the job!
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 9:50 UTC (Fri) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link] SUSE YAST will make aunt Tillie happy? Ha!Well, *maybe* if the printer is connected directly to her computer, and she ain't sharing it with anybody, and won't go beyond basic printing. But if she wants to share her printer on the WiFi with her sister Ada, YAST will do nothing to mitigate the NIGHTMARE. Whoever has tried to configure CUPS must have missed a grimoire even more than clear and concise documentation. Somebody abobe says that printers are a pain under any OS. Well, it is a very sad fact that they are a REAL PAIN in the ... under Linux, but under windows THEY ARE NOT A PAIN AT ALL: plug them on a server, plug them on a workstation, and GO. Want to print? Go. Want colour? Click and go. Want hires? Click and go. Want double sided? Click and go. There *have* been improvements in printing: at least, local printing is easy to achieve with modern distributions, even though the user interface leaves A LOT to be desired, with multiple queues for the same printer, multiple mays to watch these queues, and multiple ways to configure them, all af them not so subtly different, and not necessarily interoperable. Not an Elm Street nightmare anymore (maybe), but one of those "i'm naked in the street and everyone is watching" nightmare nonetheless.
Windows printing easy Posted Feb 27, 2004 12:51 UTC (Fri) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] Ever tried running a windows print server? It doesn't always "just work" I assure you. Fun with crap drivers, jobs that just don't want to cancel no matter what, etc. I do agree that it's _much_ easier to configure than under Linux, though more advanced configuration can be harder. Oh - and next time you set up a printer for A4 printing under Windows, count the number of different places you need to change "Letter" to "A4". With the last printer I set up, it was _eight_. *grinds teeth*.As it happens, my personal experience of printing under Linux has been very bad, too - all sorts of issues with PostScript mangling (esp from Macs), no user feedback on job status, the usual obsession with the non-standard US Letter paper size, jobs failing silently, difficulty cancelling jobs, etc. Alas, little I've been able to pin down as hard bugs and report usefully. I do think a distro-independent GUI for CUPS (other than the web interface) would be a welcome change. Also desparately needed is a printing status monitor and notification system - perhaps hook it into D-BUS, with a "print monitor" app to monitor and control things? That way you could also have panel applets in GNOME/KDE for "at a glance" status, and you could also enable applications to monitor the status of print jobs they've submitted. Better feedback from locally and remotely connected printers is also very important, and very lacking under current linux print systems. Overall, I think that printing on every OS I've ever worked with has been totally crap, and I regularly wish I could simply get rid of the damnn printers entirely.
Windows printing easy Posted Feb 27, 2004 16:38 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Heh, you're annoyed by always having to switch from Letter to A4. I'mannoyed because some apps seem to insist on always going back to A4 after I've told them to use Letter. And A4 is as nonstandard over here as Letter is over there. :-)
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 14:03 UTC (Fri) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] I grieve with you for your experiences, but other than that, I apologize, and you do notreflect my experiences here. I was talking about a network printer only environment. YaST worked flawlessly, one queue per printer. kprint manages the different settings for individual print jobs just fine. I am not Aunt Tillie, but I have never had an easier printer install under Linux that SUSE 9.0 .
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 16:53 UTC (Fri) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link] Not (yet) on SUSE9, though I will try exactly that in the next few (Ihope) minutes. We've tried all sorts of combinations of SUSE 7 and 8, CUPS and Samba, Windows 98 and 2K in my office, and it never happenned that everyone could print (or that anyone in particular could print for a very long period). It was been such a hassle that the administrator (admittedly not a super-expert, but not Aunt Tillie either) gave up, hung the printer from a seldom used Windows machine, and let it stay like that. I seldom have to print, but when I do it is OpenOffice docs or OrCAD designs (which are natively Win, anyway) , so I move into Windows and print, then go back to Linux. If desperate, I plug the printer in my machine: that works fine. As for SusE, I don't think they've done the best job with print admin, with two different entries in KDE's Control Center -- Modules->Hardware->Printer and Peripherals->Printers -- as well as entries in the main menu in System->Monitor->PrintJobs and Utilities->Print->PrinterAdministration, which do largely the same. Before you dispair, there's also text-mode yast, CUPS http admin, and last but not least, manual editing of /etc/xxxx with much praying and cursing. And surely, there must be some equivalent options in Gnome which I dare not explore. All these means to one end, and none good! > Overall, I think that printing on every OS I've ever worked with has > been totally crap, and I regularly wish I could simply get rid of the > damnn printers entirely HAHAHA! I agree ... "I've got a dream ...!"
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 17:08 UTC (Fri) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] Curious to hear whether SUSE9 does better.About the plethora of different print tools: I think the problem is that SUSE, like everyone else, first invents their own tools, and second leaves all the KDE tools (printing manager in particular) hanging around. So, there is confusing redundancy. They would be much better advised to focus on _one_ common infrastructure (KDE) and polish that, rather than roll their own. However, I suppose then there is a separate structure for Gnome, and Xfce, and and and. Fragmentation killed Unix, and it burdens Linux.
Printing a Linux Nightmare Posted Feb 27, 2004 21:53 UTC (Fri) by hijab (guest, #4134) [Link] If you have trouble, email me - suse.linux(at)temple.edu
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