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Domain: linuxprinting.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to linuxprinting.org.

Stories · 3

  1. Finding a Reliable Laser Printer?

    Hardware · Printer · · posted by Cliff · from the rocks-of-printer-stability dept. · 181 comments
    SpottedKuh asks: "Perhaps the days of sturdy laser printers are over, or perhaps it is just my bad luck. I've recently been the proud owner of two paperweights: First, an HP LaserJet 1100, which continually misfed papers and smeared toner. After selling that printer, I foolishly purchased a LaserJet 1012, not realizing just how poorly it played with my BSD systems. Naturally, I've learned my lesson about checking LinuxPrinting.org; but, more than that, I'm gun-shy about purchasing yet another printer to replace my current LaserJet. I look at one of my friends who has had a LaserJet 4P for probably around ten years, and it's still going strong. Are the days of such quality gone, or am I just looking in the wrong places?" "Though compatibility with *nix is a must, it is not all that I want. I want a printer that will be sturdy and reliable, with few toner smears and jams. Also, if I'm going to be dropping all this money again, a duplexing printer is a must! I've heard that there are a lot of design problems with the LaserJet 1320, mainly regarding the manual feed mechanism. Maybe the LaserJet 1*** printers just aren't well-built? So I'm thinking of purchasing a LaserJet 2420d; but, I haven't been able to find many reviews of that printer.

    Can the Slashdot community provide me with feedback regarding the printers I have mentioned, or any other reliable duplexing laser for in my home office?"

  2. Networked Printing on a DI-707P Router?

    Ask · Printer · · posted by Cliff · from the fixing-the-problem dept. · 45 comments
    Feztaa asks: "I've recently purchased a D-Link DI-707P wired router, which comes equipped with a parallel port, so that you can share your printer with all computers on the local network without having to rely on somebody's computer to be on for the printer to work. Unfortunately, the router only ships with print drivers for windows. The D-Link support website basically says 'for Linux printing support, go ask the Open Source community'. I've been googling for the past few days, but most searches that include 'DI-707P' just return sites trying to sell me one. Here's what I know so far: The router's web-based config system provides no configuration for the printer, it just tells me if there's a printer plugged in and turned on or not. I portscanned the router and found that port 515 is open. I know that's LPD, but I don't know how to configure that on my system. I'm using Red Hat 9, and the GUI tools will allow me to configure a networked printer using LPD, but I can't get the thing to actually print (it asks for the IP of the printer and the name queue; I don't know how to find out the name of the queue). The printer I'm using is a BJC-250. I've had absolutely no trouble printing on this printer when it was plugged into my parallel port, so I know the printer works fine. Does anybody have any experience with this router (or similar D-Link routers), and if so, what did you have to do to get your Linux system printing with it?"

  3. Slashback: Justice, Delving, Printing, Noir

    Slashback · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the department-of-redundancy dept. · 86 comments
    Updates on Tom's detective work, Kevin's touchy look-but-don't touch semi-citizen status, and last but not least a word from the elusive printman, here folded, spindled and mutilated for your edification.

    Danke sehr, Herr Doktor Pabst! The sighs -- nay, screams! -- of disappointment rose like the wail of a cat in heat following the announcement that AMD's new chips would be clock-locked, nullifying the advantages of Abit's ultra-overclockable motherboard. Jonathan Dabian writes: "This is probably a little late for me to get the name postage on the front page, but Tom's Hardware posted a new story that is an update to the Monday Blurb where they revealed that the new AMD processors would be multiplier locked. In this new story, Tom Pabst reveals the information he has since pieced together about the connections on the top of the processor, and ideas on how to alter those laser etched connections. Overclocking on the Duron and Thunderbird isn't dead. All that's needed is an easy way to alter those connections."

    How do you like your quasi-futuristic clothing, Mr. Mitnick? One of the many following the bizarre turns of the Kevin Mitnick saga, RadarRider writes: "According to the following article on MSNBC:' Reversing a previous decision, Kevin Mitnick?s probation officer has given the notorious computer intruder permission to lecture on hacking and cracking, work as a security consultant and write a column for a soon-to-be-launched e-commerce site.'"

    Disallowing use of computers unless specially granted seems a fairly over-the-top punishment -- everything has embedded processors. I wonder if Kevin has to ask permission to use an infrared-type automatic toilet, or a programmable thermostat. Where's King Solomon when you need him?

    Unca Steve, Unca Steve! Tell us a bedtime story, OK? Speaking of *ashback, gwernol writes: "There's a fascinating letter from Woz - one of the co-founders of Apple on his web page at woz.org. Its a candid glimpse into the early days of the computer world, including tales of hacking the world's first video games -Pong and Breakout - at Atari. See inside the mind of one of the truly great ones. Some interesting perspective on Steve Jobs, too."

    (Hint: some of the same words you can't say on television are off-limits to mass-market video games, too!)

    Now I can print up dozens of tasty eclaires under Linux! If you followed the recent story about modernizing UNIX printing standards, you may have caught the news that CUPS 1.1 has been released. Here's some more information from the horse's mouth. printman writes: "Nine months after the CUPS 1.0 release, we are proud the announce the birth of CUPS 1.1, with documentation nearly 500 pages long and distributions weighing in at around 4MB.

    "What is CUPS", you ask? The Common UNIX Printing System ("CUPS") is an IPP-based printing system developed by Easy Software Products as a replacement for the aging and clunky Berkeley (LPD) and System V printing systems. CUPS provides all of the modern printing ammenities, including support for user-defined printers and options, non-PostScript printers, color management, and page accounting.

    CUPS 1.1 continues our commitment to an open-sourced, IPP-based printing system for all UNIX's. The new release contains many of the functional enhancements that have been requested by our users, including:

    1. New USB backend and backend device discovery.
    2. Banner page support
    3. Digest authentication
    4. Directory service enhancements, including polling, relaying, and access control
    5. Directory structure changes to conform to the FHS 2.0 standard used by most Linux distributions.
    6. Documentation improvements and additions
    7. Drivers for EPSON printers
    8. Filters - new PostScript RIP based on GNU Ghostscript 5.50 core, new PDF filter based on Xpdf, new text filter supporting Unicode and bidirectional text
    9. IPP/1.1 support
    10. Job persistence & history
    11. Licensing change - the CUPS API is now provided under the GNU LGPL
    12. LPD client support
    13. User-defined printers and options
    14. Web administration interface

    In addition we have contributed more new code to the SAMBA team to support CUPS printing "natively" via IPP, providing a faster, more reliable Windows printing experience.

    Others have also been busy at work adding to CUPS. Besides our ESP Print Pro software, two new graphical interfaces have appeared for CUPS - KUPS is a KDE-based interface for CUPS, and XPP is a FLTK-based interface for CUPS.

    On the driver front, Grant Taylor has come up with CUPS-o-matic, a PPD file generator and filter script for existing Ghostscript printer drivers, and the GIMP print plug-in developers are working towards "universal" drivers for GIMP, Ghostscript, and CUPS.

    Finally, many Linux distributions are including (or planning to include) CUPS or ESP Print Pro. This should provide the final push to get printer manufacturers to support their printers under Linux and *BSD.

    For more information on CUPS, go to: www.cups.org

    And for bonus points ... Katsu Jin Ken writes: "Indrema has posted a new picture of their upcoming console on their front page." It's looking a lot svelter and sleeker than the old look, and like the finest computers everywhere, features a blue LED. (On the other hand, beware the rude no-exit site design.) Please, Indrema, make it so!