Re: [ALUG] Printing woefully inadequate

-- Chris ---------------------------------- E Mail: chris@glovercc.clara.co.uk SIP: 101@glovercc.claranet.co.uk IAXTEL: 17003366726 On Wed, 5 May 2004, Graham Trott wrote: > Time for a short rant... > > Half-way through a print job (Epson C80/SuSE9.0/KDE3.1.4) I run out of paper. > So I load up with a wodge of paper and press its resume button, only to find > that I put too much in and the first sheet jammed. OK, so that's a black > mark for Epson for allowing me to load more than it could actually handle. > However, the print job is now (apparently) blocking the queue, and nothing I > do at GUI level will clear it. Of course, somewhere in the myriad of > undocumented files there's bound to be one I need to zap to clear the > problem, but if the GUI has a delete button that's what I expect it to do. > Logging in as root makes no difference; the only GUI level solution seems to > be to delete the printer and reinstall it. In my view this really sucks; > it's somewhere below the state of printing Microsoft reached in about 1990. > > There's more. In the Control Center there's a Printers section that offers > Printer Tools for the specific machine, with buttons to clean or align the > print head, print a test pattern, check the ink level and so on. Sounds > impressive, doesn't it? So let's check the ink level. Oh dear, "Operation > terminated with errors - Cannot open /Stylus C80 read/write: Permission > denied." So why the hell offer the function in the first place? Ah, there's > an Administrator button. Click it, enter the password, try again. > "Operation terminated with errors - Cannot parse output from printer". So to > check my ink level - or most anything else that's actually useful - I have to > unplug the printer, plug it into a Windows machine and do it there. Great. > > OK, so maybe I can access the printer remotely from Windows. Go there, choose > Settings | Printers | Add Printer. Up comes the Wizard. Choose Network > Printer. "Browse the network..." Nothing. I know Samba is up and running > 'cos I can mount my Linux box, but where's my printer? After fiddling around > for a while I find the standard Linux driver doesn't mention CUPS, but there > seems to be another that does. It won't let me change; complains about wrong > queues or somesuch, so I delete and reinstall the printer, choosing the CUPS > driver this time. Bingo, Windows can now see the printer, so I install the > driver over there. Now right-click the new printer icon (on the Windows box) > and - oh dear - "Access denied, unable to connect". Bugger. I'm getting old > fast and have better things to do than fart about with these kinds of > problems. Guess I'll buy another printer and use one on each computer. So > much for networking. > > Lastly, just for fun I load up an image into Gimp and select Print. Bad move. > Out comes page after page of wall-to-wall text, and stopping it seems to jam > the queue as before, needing yet another printer reinstall. > > Somebody please tell me this is going to improve. Printing is a fairly basic > requirement, after all. I'd like to move my wife over to Linux, or recommend > it to other novices, but there's no way they'll put up with this kind of > crap. So here we are, trapped twixt the devil and the deep blue sea. On the > one hand, viruses, blue screens and constant demands for cash to keep the > system running; on the other, a GUI that needs a four-inch thick manual and a > degree in computer science to do the simplest of jobs. > > Aaaaarrghh! > > -- GT > > > _______________________________________________ > main@lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! > > >