Re: [mingp@corel.ca: Anyone in Debian working on or following IPP to make it available on Linux???]

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Thu, Apr 29, 1999 at 04:31:27AM -0700, John Lapeyre wrote:

> Another problem was figuring out how to get the printer recognized,
> and whether to compile lp.o as a module, and which modules to use ,
> etc. I found that often nothing would print unless turned things on in
> a certain order (that I never discovered) I found myself turning the
> printer on and off and unloading and loading the modules to get the
> printer to work.

this is what i have in my /etc/modules file. IIRC, it took me about half
an hour to figure out the first time i upgraded from kernel 2.0.x to
2.1.x:

	# parallel port
	parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7
	lp

seems pretty straight-forward to me. with hindsight, intuitively obvious :)

> And then one kernel would assign the port to lp0 and another to
> lp1, and I would forget this and go through all the other possible
> problems.

it's easy to remember:

2.0.x kernels and below use lp1 for the first printer port.

2.1.x and 2.2.x kernels use lp0


> I set it up for lose95 for my gfriend.  I just put the epson CD in
> and clicked OK, and she could print from MSword.  I would say that
> installing this printer under win95 was almost immeasurably easier
> than under Debian.  I am not complaining.  I think it was kind of
> interesting setting it up under Debian.  If my gfriend had to do it,
> she might have a different opinion.  I just don't understand how
> people can claim that it is 'easy'.

for some people/printers/systems it IS easy. for others it is hard.

i've had similar unpleasant and difficult experiences getting printers
to work in win95 - i recall one frustrating and long night a few months
ago helping a friend get their new HP inkjet working with w95.

i got a printer working for a customer in about 5 minutes (including
package download time) yesterday just by installing lprng and
magicfilter. he didn't believe it was finished and working so quickly
until i printed out a test page for him (and then i ran 'apt-get install
a2ps' so i could get 2 text pages on 1 sheet).

this was a HP 4+ with an ethernet interface, so it took a few seconds
extra to vi /etc/printcap and add the :rm=...: entry.


my point here isn't to say you're wrong. my point is that all
configurations are highly dependant on the specific situation - some
times it's easier to do one way, sometimes it's easier to do another.

overall, i'd rather put up with the occasional difficulties i enounter
with unix because I *know* that anything i learn *will* be useful
knowledge the next time i run into a similar problem. 

any energy spent learning something about unix is energy spent learning
verifiable and reproducible science, not voodoo (black chickens are too
expensive to sacrifice every time you want to change an ink cartridge!).

craig

--
craig sanders