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