Re: Comment

[tim hall <tech@glastonburymusic.org.uk>]

Andy,

Thanks for the considered reply,
I mostly just lurk on this list hoping that I'll learn something and 
generally only pipe up if I see someone suggesting dropping an audio app 
that I know to be useful or redeemable. My other concern is that Debian 
remains useful inside the recycling window [most of mine are 300Mhz - 
!GHz PIII based machines made @Y2K, so they're all at least 6 years old] 
It would be reasonable to expect reduced functionality on 90's hardware, 
but the boxes I have are still goers. I confess that I don't even bother 
plugging in the old inkjet printers, but I have a couple of old HP 
laserjets that definitely ain't broke yet. More to the point, people 
haven't started throwing 1GHz+ PIVs with USB printers at me just yet and 
this won't solve the ever mounting pile of genuinely redundant hardware 
(i.e. would not run a modern debian system acceptably) that I need to 
dispose of in a reasonably ecologically sound fashion. As a tester, I 
guess one of my functions is to flag up when the Minimum System 
Requirements for running Debian have gone up. I'm not presuming to 
command the waves here, but I think it's important to adequately 
document the situation and flag such changes. I'd be happy to come up 
with a suitable form of words if someone wants to tell me where I can 
stick it. ;)

Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> 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. 

My concern here is supporting recyclables. I still get given this stuff. 
Obviously if supporting older hardware breaks support for newer 
hardware, that's a problem too.

> 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

Thanks, that's much more graceful than my hacked up work around, can I 
quote you on this, if I need to field this sort of query in future?

> > 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 :)

Yeah, I know. I guess anyone savvy enough to recycle older hardware can 
google for it, I'll concede that.

Pob Hwyl / Cheers,

tim
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