Re: Comment

[amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk (Andrew M.A. Cater)]

On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 02:56:58PM +0100, tim hall wrote:
> Hi Andy,
> 
Hi Tim :)

> >
> >I suspect you may have fallen foul of the fact that few people use lpr 
> >any more and that CUPS seems to have taken over. Also, possibly, that 
> >more and more people are using printers with USB connectivity. Switch
> >to using CUPS and its associated drivers?
> 

There is a problem here which is common to all newer technology: it's 
hard to find spares for the older stuff. I haven't seen a printer that 
supports parallel port for sale in, probably, a couple of years. The 
Samsung ML1210 I bought then supports both - the slightly newer models 
_only_ support USB. It's got to the stage where a Centronics printer 
lead - if you can find one - is going to cost you half the price of a 
cheap new printer which includes its first cartridges. HP Deskjet 
cartridges are £20-25 each and you can buy a new printer for less than 
£75. 

CUPS effectively replaced lpr a couple of years ago too - anything other 
than USB and CUPS is going to be a corner case for a decreasing number 
of users. People who _must_ support parallel port printers are now driven 
to buying USB-parallel converters because laptops and newer computer 
motherboards don't support parallel ports (and the add-in cards have all but 
disappeared because there's no market for them - it becomes a self-fulfilling 
prophecy)

> The Parallel port problem affects CUPS too unfortunately, its solution 
> is not going to be obvious to less experienced users. 

This post and the one which preceded it will probably supply the answer
or some approximation to it:

	lsmod | grep parport.ko 

if not found 

	insmod parport.ko ; (insmod parport_pc.ko if necessary) 

then update the initramfs / add the module names to /etc/modules

	update-initramfs -u -k all

> Finding out whether there is a bug report which adequately reflects the 
> severity of the situation would be tedious enough to put off all but the most 
> hardened users from reporting it. 

Google will find this post :)

> If Debian really is going to stop supporting parallel printers, then it 
> does need flagging up rather more clearly. 

We haven't stopped: as you and others have found, there are workarounds 
- but effectively the parallel printer has been abandoned by the 
mainstream and the marketplace. Floppy disks will go the same way within
six months to a year - you can currently buy a USB floppy drive to deal 
with legacy disks, but I'll lay fairly good odds that the problem will
have "gone away by itself" in three or four years time when floppies are 
no longer common enough to warrant hardware to read them. Can you find a
drive to read 360k / 1.2M 5.25" floppies? - three years ago they were 
just about obtainable: so it goes.

> As a major user of recycled hardware I've been badly bitten by 
> this one. Sure, this isn't the most effective channel for such a 
> complaint, but I think it does deserve some attention.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> tim
> /|\

Andy (currently threatening to learn Welsh :) )