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HP Print Server Uses Linux, But Doesn't Support It?
Spyky writes: "A fairly new product from HP, the Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance includes a 266 MHz PC processor, a 5.2 GB HD, 64 MB of RAM and runs the Linux operating system. However, it fails to recognize Linux, or any non-Microsoft operating system as a valid client. In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client."
It looks to me like those are the printers it will print to, not accept client connections from.
I'm not sure what you do at VA/Andover, Rob, but if you're just hacking Slashcode, maybe you should treat your employment at VA/Andover as an opportunity to learn a bit about the IT real world, about heterogeneous networks built out of systems running things other than Linux and *BSD.
HP's network printers all support LPD. If you have even one mediocre PCL5-to-Postscript filter for Ghostscript, you can print to it. If your printer supports Postscript, you don't even need that little bit of configuration.
A JetDirect server is a little box or card that converts a non-network printer into a network printer, typically by receiving jobs via ethernet and handing them to the device's parallel interface. I've never seen a JetDirect server that didn't support LPD. As far as I know, they all do. HP is a large Unix vendor, after all. Most Windows printing to HP network printers prior to this native SMB support is actually done via LPD. Client machines send jobs via SMB to a print server (typically an NT box), and the print server transmits it as an LPD job to the printer. The newer JetDirect cards remove the need to run a "software" print server by putting the SMB support into (or next to) the printer.
Later JetDirect models have added built-in support for Netware, Ethertalk and most recently, direct SMB support. If for some reason (security, strict job management, or some weird neurosis) you want to print fron Linux machines using something other than LPD, you're certainly welcome to do so. Netatalk and CAP both support Ethertalk printing, Mars-NWE (if I recall) supports Netware printing, and Samba supports SMB printing just fine, and they've all done so for years.
Unless HP has suddenly abandoned all four of these protocols (and no, they haven't) in favor of a strage new networked variation of PPA (the "Winprinter" protocol on some of their cheap inkjets), you can print from Linux very easily indeed on any and all JetDirect-connected printers. Not to mention the myriad LPD-capable Xerox, Canon, Textronix and IBM printers chugging away out there. Granted, if you have a $50,000 printer with multiple output trays, six paper drawers, multipoint stapling, a laminator and an envelope-stuffing attachment, you're not going to have a Linux driver on hand that can use all of those features. But you'll be able to print just fine.
One a Linux box is set up and configured properly, it can go forever. Thus it makes great sense as a preconfigured print server. On the other hand, getting a Linux box set up as a client, can be absolute hell! There are three bazillion tweaks and incompatibilites that your flavor of Linux client can have. The printer drivers are generally bare bones support, and designed by people outside of the printer company. Thus the return for offering support versus the effort needed to maintain that support on linux is a very poor proposition. Until Linux becomes a relatively large and homogenous target market, it doesn't make economic sense to support it as a client.
LetterRip
Tom M.
TomM@pentstar.com
In case you hadn't noticed, Windows, by default, in no way supports the LPD protocol, no standard printer drivers that I've ever seen support that kind of functionality, and HP themselves usually distributes third party NT-based server software with their network printers to allow SMB clients to connect to that server which acts as sort of proxy to the network printer itself. All this product does is replace that server software with a box you can easily mount in a rack, give a couple of IP addresses to, and just go instead of having to mess around with complicated software installations and risk crashing that unstable NT box you've decided to use as the SMB (not LPD -- note the difference) print server.
If anything, HP deserves credit (yay HP!) for what they've done with this product, not derided. (And their marketing department looks to be pretty on the ball here, so don't give them crap either.) They're using Linux to provide functionality easily which would otherwise be very difficult if the customer relied strictly on Windows. Your Unix box can still print just fine with this product around because it CAN use the LPD protocol. Your cubicle-mate, however, can't because, if anything, his stupid Windows box probably thinks LPD is a psychoactive drug or something and so, with the HP Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance, he now gets the same functionality out of the network printer that you do, and the boss doesn't have to spend $3k on yet another server that has to be configured with a whole OS and all that goes along with that. Or, alternatively, he doesn't have to dance with Samba on a Unix server he may already have set up, taking away resources from the already heavy Oracle database running on it. Or, alternatively to that, he doesn't have to rely on the Jet Admin software being installed on an NT workstation that might possibly crash often or get misconfigured or be prone to any of an infinity of pilot errors. Sounds like a good deal to me.
No, this isn't ironic, CmdrTaco. Y'all just don't do your research and are quick to jump a reactionary gun at anything that doesn't just gush about Linux and is designed to support Windows exclusively. In this case, it's only Windows that needs this support because your Linux box can already do what Windows can't.
Geez.
jer
Indeed. I got a perfect example of this when HP technical support refused to tell me how to get the BIOS to recognise the suspend partition on my HP laptop. [...] The tech support guy quite happily told me that he ran Red Hat at home, but wasn't allowed to tell me anything because I wasn't running Windows...
Weird. Back in 1995, when I first had an opportunity to try Linux, I wanted to install on a 66 MHz 80486 HP Vectra XM, a pretty nice machine with built-in video and networking. Unfortunately, the manual didn't tell you what kind of video chipset the system had. So I called HP, used my HP-UX system ID, and was put through to an engineer who looked the information up in a book for me.
That's probably the key, though -- the HP-UX support people are almost certainly not the same as the people who do support for their PCs and laptops. And, now that I think about it, I may have had to dance around the questions from the receptionist, as well.
A printing appliance with such specs should cost HP around $300.00 to manufacture. Give them a 15% margin, then let the retailers mark it up 50% and you're still under $700.00.
The price point here was set at what managers expect to pay for a name brand device.
Of course it is quite a deal compared to the price of WinNT/2k Server for printing + client licensing at $35 per...
Of course noone actually reads the links they are too busy whining that they can't have a $1300 print appliance in their living room.
I agree with your opinion - mostly. I don't think the article was posted because of it's alleged 'incompatibility' with Linux, but rather the irony that accompanies the fact that it runs Linux, but you can't print to it with Linux.
On the other hand, it should also be seen as a thumbs up for the Linux world as we've achieved yet another corporate acceptance - Hewlett Packard.
If you use any Unix you don't need it.
The Print Appliance helps a Windows machine to print to "Unix" ldp printers.
With Unix just print directly to the printer or set up a print spool on a unix machine and tell the Print Appliance to use that spool/printer.
Oh, and Linux is a Unix as far as I care.
florian
I have to agree, IME it's one of the bigger stumbling blocks to desktop Linux in an NT environment. Samba works reasonably well but seems to be better at making mounts available than connecting to those mounts. I used Mandrake as a desktop exclusively at work for about six months and this was the one shortfall, as even with a properly configured Samba it was hard to maintain mounts on an NT file server and resulted in a lot of semi-broken directories in my ~home directory.
It is a good thing that they are called Hewlett-Packard instead of Packard-Hewlett, otherwise instead of HP-UX we'd be dealing with PH-UX.
From "Why Software Should Be Free" by RMS:
...Later Xerox gave the AI lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so
we couldn't add any of our favorite features...
;)
No...not another FSF!
This is an EX-PARROT!
The box may or may not still accept UNIX line printer connections. If I were putting together the product, I would disable that because it raises all sorts of additional security issues.
You can almost certainly print to the box using SMB from a UNIX client. But, of course, if it doesn't work, you have to figure out yourself why.
Reminds me of some of the non-PS Apple printers for Macs. They relied on Quickdraw in the OS to do the actual rendering and then sent the bitmap data out to the printer.
I imagine that HP is using Windows GDI to accomplish the same thing. That way the printer is nothing more than a mechanism for moving paper in front of a print head, it doesn't require a whole lot (any?) programmable logic or the cost involved in developing it.
The gripe I have is that in this day and age, I can't imagine that the cost involved in adding a slot for a $100 smart networking+formatter board that would allow dumb printers to become smarter printers. HP does it for the networking side, and it'd be great to see it for the formatting side of the equation, too.
With enough integration and planning they could make a single formatter board work across their entire range of printers. Making it optional would enable them to keep shilling $109 printers to the masses at CompUSA without raking anyone who wants a little brains over the coals.
Pentium 75 with 1.5GB: $80.
All my appliance needs is a printer and, oh yes, for me to want such a thing.
The computers have in invaded my living room, get out while you still can!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
While I haven't double-checked it for use, nmap shows that on our 4050N's by HP, the port for lpr is indeed open.
As for setting up printers, I've never had a problem using anything other than printtool.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Listen, you poor little fella. There's a big-ass thing you missed. If the printer in question is connected to a Windows NT system, and the printer is not using the default Windows NT printer driver, or if that printer driver wasn't included in NT and had to be added, it won't work! It'll only work if you install the printer as a local printer using the Win2k driver, then use net use to make LPT1 the other one. It's a big fat mess.
And you're gonna tell me it's harder to set up a network printer in Linux?
JetDirect devices support LPD.. so I'd expect that this "appliance" does as well. I was also a bit confused about this article. Linux (and any unix that can run LPD) *is* supported AFAIK. Commercial support may be an issue though.
You would think that a vendor like HP would be willing to provide support to a company that just spent 20k on printers and consumables... No such luck.
One of our 8100N's refused to feed paper from the optional large (expensive) paper tray. I called HP and spoke to three reps, all of which thought that "you have a software problem, what's Solaris"
After about days wasted we discovered that the paper guides were broken and just sent the thing back to the vendor. I will never make the mistake of buying an HP product again.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I contacted HP direct on this issue once (I buy all HP equipment), and they told me there is not and never will be a jetdirect software for Linux. However, as many have pointed out, you can just go straight in with lpd and it will work (had plenty of problems with non-postscript print queues on RedHat tho'....)
Quit moderating up Fascdot Killed My PR. He is a troll.
They don't need it; that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't be able to use it, though.
For the record, the point about being able to provide network-wide print services to a Windows network without having to pay deployment fees out the wazoo would have to be a great reason for using Linux in this beast. Saves HP royalties, saves the customers money (though anyone using embedded NT should be beaten anyway for taking the long way around for no good reason), and it does in fact do the job.
/Brian
HP has horrible driver support for NT and Windows 2000 in their printers and scanners. It's like they think that everyone runs Windows 9x, even businesses. Many of their products don't have NT drivers, and those that do don't have anywhere near the features of their corresponding Win 98 drivers...
BTW, this whole printer thing is not too hard to setup. I had my printer setup for a while to print to a printer located on a Windoze box. I did it under RedHat, and haven't bothered to set it up again under SuSE. But I remember that it was fairly painless.
Now that the moderators are considering marking this up as "Informative," does anyone else think that Micro$oft might have paid for this? I wouldn't be too surprised if this was the truth. Micro$oft is too big to be greatly affected by negative publicity. They're being sued by the Federal Government, one of the least trusted organizations, because they don't trust Micro$oft. Yet Micro$oft's Empire is still the largest. C'mon Tux, you can do it. You can crumble that dirty empire...
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
Samba Rocks!!!! Carry on with the fabulous work.
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
If the cost of support is greater than the revenue, then they woulds be losing money. Companies exist to maximize profit, so they're not going to offer services or products that will lose money.
Eric ze Kidder
Use Linux -> You have substantial control over the box, and can make it do what you want. No licensing costs. Good.
Support Linux Clients -> Users have substantial control over their boxes, and can have arbitrary local patches, changes, or different (and possibly incompatible versions). Impossible to *support*.
I don't particularly blame them. I've done Unix support, and even if you have people nailed down to a specific version of a specific distribution, it's a serious pain.
Flexibility is hard to support.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
"Supported" has different meanings to different people. Saying that Linux is not supported as a client is a long, long way from saying that it won't work. They may just not have their support staff trained on Linux printing issues. It's as valid a reason as any.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is pretty much what HP's PPA printers (700 series and some others) do. And, they do have a linux driver that in addition to ghostscript can render postscript to them.
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Just because it does not show linux in its setup doesn't mean crap.
It uses LDP print to the port!!!
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
it is relatively easier for them to support the appliance than to officially support all the various and sundry combinations of system software and hardware that people can make boot. they designed the appliance and hence they know how it works and there are no variables. it costs more for ANY company to support ANY additional platform. this must be passed onto the consumer. if they do not believe there are enough additional consumers to offset this cost it's not worth their while (and most linux advocates i know want everything to to be free anyway). it's not to say that there's never been foul play involved in these decisions but everything is not a conspiracy.
Why would they make more money if that had linux. You are aware that it cost money to develop sofware. Anyway thy probably didnt choose linux becuase it was so great, but rather becuase they dont have to pay an expensive licensing fees for it. Hence they dont have to pay money for every print server they sell.
Anyway it is well known that linux is a better in in a server role, as opposed to a desktop, despite heroic efforts, (dont worry its getting there).
How much money and personel do you need to write a HP JetDirect 4000 Print Appliance HOW-TO?
I mean come on!
Rafts of posts have pointed out that this box works with 'any LPD-enabled network printer,' as if that somehow meant that HP really is supporting Linux/Unix (after and just forgot to mention it (lpd being, after all, originally a Unix-based protocol).
Please read that again. All it means is that their box can (nay, must) communicate with its associated printer over the network -- port 515, lpd protocol. It doesn't mean that a Unix or Linux client can communicate *with the box* using lpd!
Now you might very well ask why you'd need to communicate with the box if you can just spool directly to the printer with lpd. In fact, you might ask why you'd need the box at all, given that your printer already must have a network port -- why not just use an lpd client on your Windows client?!
HP seems to be selling this as a better spooler that acts as an intermediary between your crappy Windows boxes and your printer's rudimentary built-in network connection. It's common practice to do this on a Windows server box because (a) Windows lpd clients are not very common and (b) network-enabled printers for some reason don't usually speak SMB and (c) the network printers don't handle spooling in a very sophisticated manner. The advantage to the box is supposed to be that it is cheaper than buying a whole new Windows server machine to do the jobbecause your Windows file server keeps going down and you don't want printing to be interrupted when it does (they actually say this, almost!)
Of course a dumpster-dived (-dove? -diven?) 486 running Linux would do this just fine and other stuff as well, as it has in our lab for years, but I can see the appeal to non-technical types who just want everything to work when they plug it in.
The box apparently does NOT support *clients* via lpd, and as such cannot really be called 'Linux-compatible.' Though I am sure it is possible to talk to it using Samba (obviously HP doesn't support this; in their FAQ they state flat out that Unix clients cannot use the box). All I can say is, 'stupid, stupid, stupid.'
Q) .What has the open source movement gained?
:-).
ans: nuffin.
Bzzzzt : WRONG ANSWER - thanks for playing.
I don't want to talk too much about this as I'm
sure HP have lots of marketing they want to do
around this.
But the deal is that *yes* this box uses Samba.
*YES* - HP have donated a *lot* of time, effort,
*CODE* (note that - it's important !) and money
in helping Samba support the new WinNT print
subsystem.
They have also helped us push the development on
authentigration and user enumeration between Samba
and WinNT, (check out the winbind project being
done on the Samba lists).
All of these goodies will appear in Samba 2.2.x,
due... well.... when it's *ready* (soon I hope) !
HP are *massively* contributing to Samba, and
the Open Source efforts. Just as much as other
vendors (SGI, Veritas) and other official Samba
supporters do !
Don't knock them just because their marketing
people sometimes are a bit clueless, and only
mention Windows in a product sheet.
They don't mention Samba either (I'm going to
be having a word with them about that....
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
I swear it seems like companies don't want to make money. It seems to me that it would be wise to offer a product to as wide a range as possible.
We're linux geeks. It's not like we're going to call their technical support. That'd take all the fun out of it.
Misfit
In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client.
Hey, so much for journalistic objectivity.
Thank you, Spyky, for making that assumption for us. Thanks for thoroughly researching this situation and sharing with us your keen and impartial observations.
And thank you, CmdrTaco, for making sure we all get the clearest facts and the most objective tone.
Jeeze. Just because the spec does not *list* Linux as being "supported" does not mean that it does not work. Moreover, it does not mean that HP has put the nix on Linux as a client as was so obviously implied.
Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
This is because Linux is so fragmented ( all the diff dists ) that tech support people just can't keep up so HP and my company ( Compaq ) has a hard time supporting an OS that is so fragmented.
Personally, I see this as the right way of doing things. Linux is good as a server, and I like to play around with it on my machine (I program for class on it). But from my own tests, I would never install it on my family's machine.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
but does it run windows?
I'm a moron who saved my password in a cyber cafe.
While I have about us much use for Paul Allen (and anyone else associated with Micros~1) as tits on a boar hog, I use Charter's cable modem service both at home and at my office. At the office I'm using IP Masq to provide internet to all 20 workstation systems, and at home I'm using 3 IP's with one cable modem. On the little home LAN is one box doing IP Masq for 4 other boxen, and 2 other boxen getting their own IP's, one of which is my Quake3 server. And I know some their tech guys here in my area who use and love Linux and FreeBSD. Sales people may be clueless... But the people who really keep things working, the techs, aren't. And I know for a fact some of Charter DNS servers run RedHat 6.1. I pointed out to them that ns1.chartertn.net accepted incoming telnet requests. Needless to say they fixed that immediately. :)
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
It seems that HP is far from alone in seeing Linux as a valid, cheap, better-performing alternative to Microsoft OS's on the server-side, but (like much of the industry) doesn't think Linux has any business as a client/workstation OS. I think that's a mistaken view, but it's a common one. Of course, what they're failing to see, is that even a server may (depending on purpose) need to print from time to time.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
I have set up countless linux boxes in the last 5 years, and have yet to get a box to print to a network print server.
Granted, it hasn't been something I've spent a lot of time on, but I have an office full of Windows machines printing to a Windows print server (running HP jetdirect, as a matter of fact), but none of the linux boxes print to the thing.
The ability to add network printers quickly and easily is still lacking in both gnome and KDE... Perhaps this is why HP isn't eager to support linux?
Some companies really have their heads up their rears when it comes to drivers. I've got a SpeedStream 3600 ADSL card in my Win98 machine because there's no drivers for Linux, so I'm forced to use Win98 with Internet Connection Sharing as my home network's gateway to the 'net. This irritates me to no end because it is exactly what linux would be good at, but I'm forced to do it this way because there's no drivers for the SpeedStream 3600 on linux.
Why can't these companies see that the ratio of linux to windows users using higher bandwidth connections is going to be much more significant than with regular old dial-up POTS? Therefore, a linux driver would not be so out of the question due to that ratio?
--
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
linux lusers would whine and cry about it not being Open Source
Presumably, if it's using Linux, it is open source?
But more seriously, I've never known a linux user to skimp from buying hardware. Software maybe (why buy it when you can write your own version?), but hardware is not something you can download the source code for to get it for free.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Probably people will be irate even if it only means there's no official support. But realistically, it would be a huge additional expense for them to have to troubleshoot Samba configurations. I can see why they might not want to do that.
---------
It uses SMB for the clients, but it supports any lpd capable printer. That means you don't need the HP server, just use lpr and print to the printer directly. Why they run lpd on the thing, I don't understand. It would be so easy to do, especially since they are running a Linux kernel.
But, if you *think* you need this device and are running Linux, maybe you should install Windows.
dmp
Stop talking about who's to blame when all that counts is how to change --"Born of Frustration" - James
> This is a business appliance.
And this is a business. And we have windows PCs, Linux boxes and AS/400s which all need to be able to use the printers.
What's this "hax0r consumer" you are talking about got to do with it? If you think linux is confined to colleges you need to progress beyond 1995.
Also, I would add that while the non-ms machines here are well under 20%, the amount of printing done from them is probably more than 20% of the total.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Sure it is.
It has the key features for a story:
What else did you want ? This article has almost all the requirements for an approved story. The only missing item would be to mention somewhere the word "geek".
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Indeed. I got a perfect example of this when HP technical support refused to tell me how to get the BIOS to recognise the suspend partition on my HP laptop. I said "Does it have to be in a specific location? Does it have to have a particular partition type? Does it have to be formatted in any particular way?". They said "Use the utility we provide under Windows". I pointed out that I didn't run Windows, and thus couldn't run the utility (which I didn't have anyway). They refused to give me the information I needed. I didn't want help on how to do anything, I just needed the info so I could do it myself. But apparently any non-MS usage isn't allowed, and they wouldn't tell me anything. The tech support guy quite happily told me that he ran Red Hat at home, but wasn't allowed to tell me anything because I wasn't running Windows...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
This really doesn't surprise me in the least I mean HP even refuses to support a "mainstream" OS like Winblows 2K. Ok thats a lie they support it IF you pay exrta money just to get the 2000 drivers... WTF??
This post already got a better reply from a member of the Samba team, but there's some points I want to add anyway.
"Is this a model for future company involvement in Linux/Open source software?"
It doesn't matter. The assumptions made in the post are actually false (that HP hadn't contributed, etc), but even if they were true (as they are for other companies), it wouldn't matter.
The point of OpenSource/Free Software development is not getting other people to contribute as much as you do. The point is to gain freedom over your tools. It doesn't matter if anyone abuses that freedom. Someone most certainly will. As long as we are allowed to work with each other, it doesn't matter if the rest of the world plays nice. It's their loss because anything they don't contribute we can't build on.
It's just as selfish to demand all the users of free software to contribute back as it is for proprietary softare vendors to keep their software proprietary. Freedom is not about other people's freedom to help you out. It's not freedom from leaching. It's our own freedom to cooperate that matters.
That being said, we must be ever vigilant to maintain that freedom. Whenever any company, group or individual uses free software, they must be held accountable to the licencing of the software in question. Failure to do so undermines the only system we have for protecting those freedoms. Our need to defend our licences comes only from our need to be allowed the freedom to operate under them, not from our need for "payback" from everyone who uses our software.
Well all of their Inkjets use VxWorks as the operating system of choice, and I don't see any VxWorks drivers :) Just cause they like an operating system and it is the right application doesn't mean it is a financially feasible idea to provide drivers for that OS.
spoons
So why not just by it and see if it really doesn't support Linux? That would end this discuttion wouldnt? Fede2
I have no problem with there being no support for Linux by hardware manufacturers. Tech Support is a huge expense, and training personel how to deal with one OS family is hard enough.
What I do have a problem with is the failure to be open with technical information. The presentation of such information could be done via web page (as is done with many drive manufacturers,) explicitly without warranty of accuracy, etc, thus minimizing the cost while maintaining a larger population of possible consumers for their product.
Regarding the print server, I don't see why they don't (assuming they don't) let it be both a standard JetDirect (i.e. lpd) server as will as a SMB share.
--
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Hmmm... I managed to find the MIB for our 4500N. It wasn't in an obvious place (I think it was listed under the JetDirect card, not the printer), but I got it.
Even if this product ONLY suppported print clients on the XXXYYYYZZZ 2000 operating system, it is a good thing to see Linux being chosen as the development platform REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT LINUX CLIENTS ARE SUPPORTED. This tells me that Linux has now broken through the glass ceiling, and it is being chosen as the cost-effective, reliable development platform that is suitable for running an enterprise. I think that's sending the wrong message to state that Linux needs to be supported as platform in such development environments. I'm more enthusiastic about the fact that we're now seeing Linux used in areas where Linux was not used before. I do understand the counterpoint, I can tell that in a service such a print server, Linux should be supported (and based on the threads below, it is), but I want to preach Linux EVERYWHERE. Linux embedded, Linux for cross-platform development, Linux in heterogenous server environments, as well as Linux for Linux clients.
Im more than sure they have made modifications to the base linux,
Have they released the source code for the kernel they use? Could they be violating GNU/GPL?
Im more than sure something could be figured out. Furthermore, one has to wonder. And, while using SMB to access the server may be a stop/gap solution, its mostly BS, even Apple saw the writing on the wall, and Appleshare IP uses lpd. One would think they, and other vendors would get with the program.
As for the people stating its a liability issue, in terms of support, what a crock. If you cant support clients using Linux, then, IMHO, you have no business using it in a product.
Thats akin to a manufacturer such as Apple, saying, they will support an Appleshare IP server, using MacOS, but they wont support the iMac's with MacOS which connect to the server. They both run MacOS. If Apple made such a comment, there would be a class action lawsuit so fast...
But, the gist of it is, if they can use it in their products, they can support clients using it. Period. And, again, id sure like to know if they have released the source code for any changes they made to their Linux.
Supernaut
Linux is not ready for prime time yet. This chunk of plastic is VERY interesting to me as our IT manager came in the other day adn told us that HP was puting out a new "print server thingie" and I was suposed to check it out.. arives tomorow. hopefully to help eliminate Novel server crashes.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Curious... is this a standard jet direct interface listening on port 9100? If so, then if you install and use lprng on linux, it should work just fine.
I know we use lprng to print from Solaris to all our HP and Xerox printers where I work, and it works like a charm.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
>HP has their own unix OS - you don't get much cheaper than that
If HPUX is so good - why are they using Linux?
>It's ALREADY DONE. They already pay developers
They pay developers to do what? Make Linux bins run on HPUX - That's useful for the open source movement, as we can all see. Not.
>First - why do they owe you anything? Using "your" product helps prove that it's a real product
I am not part of the open source movement - Why do you assume that just because of my viewpoint on this issue?
Teen angst - Err no - sorry, wrong again.
When I were your age, all round here were fields...
Put aside the conspiracy theory for a minute and look at it. The purpose of this cheap little device is to remove print spooling from your overworked NT and put it off to the side where you don't have to worry about it. (by cheap I mean it's $1300 compared to the $20000 NT box your using now) And even better is that it's doing this with our favorite OS.
Basically it's a replacement part. And however your unix is connected to your current NT print server will most likely transfer over to it.
Furthur more, it is running lpd, it is Linux based, and you can probly telnet to it. Thus you should have no problem setting it up as your unix print server as well. For all we know there is probly a readme on the device which explains how to do just that.
sorry to nit pick, but won't it be
H++;P++
??
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
It apparently takes jobs from SMB clients and prints them to the printer using LPR (which basically every networked laser printer supports these days, including all the HPs, Tektronix, and so on, as well as the older HP Jetdirect cards and servers.).........HP is really missing the boat on this one, anyway. You should be able to print to it via lpr.......
Or alternatively, you could print to the printer directly using lpr couldn't you? Seems like making the traffic walk the wire once to the server, and again to the printer is a huge waste of bandwidth.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Well, since it's running a fullfledged os, why not include a really stripped down ftp client (there is one of these configured in /etc/services, i forget the name. tftp?) that can send a driver to the computer? Write it in java for that run-anywhere experience.
Of course, you'd better hope the OS has the equivalent of nobody users, but I digress.
... or is this what PnP is supposed to do -- include the software driver in the hardware? I seem to recall something about a forth-based configuration language.
It supports all of the things you mention. When it says "supported clients" they mean you can call and say my win2k box doesn't work and they will help you fix it. You can't say "my Linux 2.1.2342 kernel won't recognize it" because they don't want to retrain their phone support. There is no "If OS = Linux then Do Not Print" conspiracy. Of course noone actually reads the links they are too busy whining that they can't have a $1300 print appliance in their living room.
http://www.hp.com/cposupport/networking/support_do c/bpj05969.html
this might clear some of this up. They do support lpd/lpr on the JetDirect products.
I think what we have here is not an exclusion of Linux, but an omission of Linux.
Has anyone contacted HP about this to confirm?
OTOH getting windoze pcs to print to the same printers was always a long and tedious exercise which required finding the "install CD" and trying to make sense of some conusing and misleading menu choices.
Give the me linux setup any day!
The guy who went off on the ignorant rant about how hard it is to set up a printer on a Linux system is obviously ignorant of the reality.
What has the open source movement gained?
ans: nuffin.
IBM, HP, Intel, NEC Announce Open Source Lab (141)
This, among other things...
I hope it handles better under load than their Jetdirect boxes: these suck big time. Single tasking, no administrative control except for some cheesy Windows app, crashes under load, no security, no flexibilty in setup.
Sorta like their printers lately: flimsy and easy to break.
I hope they send one to Richard Stallman and ask him to fix it for them. Wasn't it a printer with firmware he couldn't have the source to what made RMS start the FSF? 8-)
There is a good reason that this device doesn't support UNIX users: they don't need it. This device is intended to act as an interface between Windows clients and a JetDirect card in an HP printer. If you are running *nix, you can just print to your printer directly through LPR.
Ok, fine, then why do Windows users need this thing? Well, direct client-->printer printing *is* possible using HP's Network Printer Install wizard, which creates a print path directly to port 9100 on the printer. This program is (not suprisingly) too difficult for the average brain-dead Windows user. The average user wants to find a print server in his/her Network Neighborhood and connect to one of its printers.
Ok, then why not use a Windows machine to act as a print server? Well, the answer is simple. Windows NT Workstation and Windows 2000 Professional have a limit of 15 simultaneous connections to its printer/drive shares. If you want more than that (chances are, you will), you'll need to buy NT Server or Windows 2000 Server which will run you at least a grand or two, not to mention the cost of maintaining it.
This great little device effectively allows a typical lamer Windows admin to deploy print services to his/her entire Windows network for a few hundred bucks. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.
Chris
and a caffiene and napster blurb...
Oh and where the hell is John Katz bitching about "Geek Rights" when you need him?!? This is a DIRECT ATTACK from HP on geekrights.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
What if I want to print my IRC logs out at 20 pages per minute!
Every try and print an entire slashdot story with all the comments on a lousy "home consumer" bubble jet?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Since when can you not use linux as a print client?
This thing supports LPR and SMB, no? Linux can do both.
Actually, you are wrong. While it may have taken a few minutes for HP to disable printing from *nix clients, it would have taken them several days to write the technical documentation and several more days to train support staff on supporting *nix users.
Read my post farther down the page about why it is pointless for this device to support *nix. It actually creates more potential problems and than it fixes.
s/client/server/
HP must have seen that linux was clearly the best os to be incorporated in their new printer but they must've also thought their helplines would get flooded if they supported linux as a client too. Fearing their tech support couldn't cope with thousands of linux geeks demanding support on their exotic custom made build, they decided not to support linux at all. Or maybe they're just being stupid and ignorant, or bribed my microsoft.
This is getting somewhere though, in the past HP would probably never even have considered anything linux based, so this probably means even non-geeks see some form of progress in the development of linux.
If HPUX is so good - why are they using Linux?
Does HPUX run on X86 hardware? What is the price differant (just in hardware) between a pent 75 (or whatever they use) and what ever hardware HPUX runs on? IIRC HPUX servers don't come cheap
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Just to reply to a troll....
Granted, it wasn't a bunch of Linux boxen, but at one of the places I've worked at, we had 500+ Sun boxen running various versions of SunOS, 200+ combined HP and IBM workstations, 150 or so Macs, mainly in the marketing, plus about 100 (or thereabouts) Windows boxen.
This was a few years ago, and since then, they've been bought out by Cadence, so I don't know what's going on there now.
--
apparently its HP's policy NOT to release their MIB (the document that translates numbers to names). I find this pretty pathetic; as the norm these days (and for years, too) is to release your MIB so that other netmgt stations can compile it and manage your box intelligently.
what makes HP think that their vision is so special that they can't release their variable names?
sheesh.
so this latest move of theirs is not at all surprising to me. hp is NOT an "open" company; I never saw them that way; and they're not helping matters with this latest stunt.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
You're calling either Win2k or NT a full-fledged OS? I'm sorry, chum, but you're just plain wrong!
Seriously, we tried practically everything and worked the issue for hours. It reminded me of the Office 97 file compatibility issue.
Then add some more services...my printer is also my web server & houses my database too...
Regardless of whether it is running SAMBA or HP's own CIFS, you can still configure your Linux box to print to it. The fact that HP won't /support/ it (read: answer your questions during a service call) has nothing to do with whether it can be done. Hell, I'm using a shared printer on an NT box to do my printing right now. I can see no reason you won't be able to do the same with this unit.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Using Linux as a print server is easy. Any person with a general knowleadge of linux can setup a print server for appletalk, SMB, and TCP/IP. It's really not that hard at all. Now training 400 or so support staff personal on how to setup a printer on Linux is another story.
Figuring it would cost $500 per person, that's $200,000 dollars. That's alot of money to support 15 million or so Linux users, most of which doesn't really need support. I mean if a person can write a bash script, setup a firewall, and lives in a shell, why would they need need help with lpd anyways? Not mention there are more then just one way to print in Linux.
From a marketing stand point, it's just not smart to support so many diffence ways of doing one thing for so few users, but it would be smart to discribe how it work so that a Linux would spend less time figuring out what they have to do to work with the product without officaly supporting Linux.
Maybe when Linux is dumb down (making it easier to use, blah!), then we can get support.
MarNuke
MarNuke
Second thing I found out is that their pages contain no email addresses to contact at all.
---
Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources
If it has an IP address and you hae a driver, what else do you need?
It's pretty clear. They took the cheapest hardware they could find, put Linux on it and are selling it. It would cost EFFORT to make it not work with Linux as a client OS, as that's standard. My bet is they just use lpd (Confirmed!), and it would cost effort to prevent it from working.... Hmm. Disproved here.
Roger.
It's even creepier when you realize that the company was founded by two gents named Iewlett and Qackard.
Agilent / HP / Telegra-D Fax analyzer runs PicoBSD and does not support any client other than windoze. But the client runs nicely in wine ;-)
That's exactly right. If you're going to an LPD capable printer, you can just set up a queue to the printer directly. You then don't need the HP 4000 print server at all!
I do wish people would apply a little more brainpower before getting their undies in a bunch over a triviality.
Of course, if you're setting up a new network, you'd be better to start thinking about the Common Unix Printing Ssytem or maybe LPR Next Generation instead of dealing much with LPD.
Repeat after me,
"This product is designed to replace print servers"
... that they're selling into. The only shops that really need dedicated print servers are large companies, fortune 1000, et al. Those shops are still predominantly (if not completely) using Windows NT and 95 on the desktops. If Linux was there, then they'ed no doubt support them, but there's *probably* very little actual demand for it, just a lot of curiousity.
And it's not like they snubbed Linux but still offered HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Irix and FreeBSD support. They just said "we think our market is using Windows on the desktop" and stuck with that...
A-1: A profit-seeking private corporation.
Q-2: Why would they use Linux?
A-2: Cheap, realiable, customizeable OS available for a variety of hardware.
Q-3: Why do most /.'ers run Linux?
A-3: See answer #2.
Q-4: What has HP taken away from open source?
A-4: A free license to use Linux.
Q-5: What do most /.'ers take away from open source?
A-5: See answer #4.
Q-6: What has HP given back to the open source community?
A-6: Some code, another high-profile Linux-based product, and more validity in the market.
Q-7: What does the average /.'er give back to the open source community?
A-7: Some code, perhaps a few low- to medium-profile Linux-based products, and evangalism in the market.
IANAL, but I'm guessing you get your legal advice at Slashdot, just like I do.
Anyway, I was intrigued enough by what you said to actually look up the relevant passage (Sec. 1201) of the DMCA. I very much doubt that this passage is in any way relevant, especially since the EFF's comments to the Copyright Office make no mention of anything remotely resembling the interpretation you're making. Presumably you can point to a legal ruling that using DAVE, Samba or Netatalk is ILLEGAL?
---------
quite right. it makes economic sense to them to run linux as the os not as a recognized client. seems obvious....
- "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" -Mark Twain
- "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" -Mark Twain
Nor do I. If you re-read my original post, you'll see that I specifically did not want support. I only wanted techincal information about the hardware/firmware, so that I could make my own mistakes with that information. I didn't want HP to fix any problems I had. I only wanted the information to enable me to fix them myself.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Why must you have such contempt and assume intent?
How about the fact that it's easier to support things which are predictable? There's a hell of a lot more distros of Linux out there than there are flavors of Windows... Linux on their printserver is a known quantity. Linux on your workstation is not. libc compatibility, anyone?
I am the director of I.S. for a .com company that runs a pure Linux network. We have 45 users and workstations. Most all of our users had never used Linux before employment here. I am constantly looking for ways to convince them that the Linux OS is just as capable of performing the day to day office tasks as any of its competitors. We have not paid a penny for any of our software applications. The fact that all of our software was free allows us to pay our employees a little extra. This is always something that shuts a whiner down. There is also the promise that soon the final versions of all the half finished applications we are forced to use will be complete or stable and fully functional. Now it is getting to the point where our investers will be willing to shell out copious amounts of cash to put a halt to all of our efforts and introduce an evil O.S. that everyone seems to miss so badly. I am the last one to want this to happen because I am a firm believer in the open source project. We have bought several printers and fax machines from a few of the main vendors (i.e. H.P) These machines are very expensive and I feel that a large part of the money that I have spent on them is also spent on the software that comes in the box with the machine. I am sure that H.P. and vendors alike have put a great deal of their resources into the creation of the software that accompanies thier products. Why should I pay for something that is useless to my company. I have written to 3 different companies. first I ask them why they won't support Linux and when I receive their ignorant answers I ask them for the source code so that we can have a shot at making the software compatible with Linux and our network. Of course they don't even reply to these requests. I cannot believe that H.P. runs Linux inside but won't run Linux outside. Our printer problems are constant and I have employed a person just to deal with printer problems all day. Our users blame all of their problems on Linux when in fact the blame lies with these major vendors that claim to support the O.S. but only actually half support it. Come on H.P. if your going to use Linux give something back to the people that made it possible for you to use it in the first place. L-users!
It's an SMB print server--apparently built out of Samba, no less. That means if you have Samba (or a commercial SMB implementation, for that matter) installed on your Unix, Linux or BSD systems, you can print to this just fine. Will HP engineers field your support calls? Nope. But will you be able to print? Absolutely.
And Samba's been bundled with civilized admin tools on every mainstream (read: bigger than 2 floppies) Linux distro of the past 4 years. It works like a champ on nearly every other Unix-like OS out there, too.
This particular model JetDirect is a bit different from most past ones. This one is for printers that are already network-enabled, and communicates with them by LPD. It's simply a way to add SMB print queues without running a disk-based print server.
On-board native SMB print queueing is still a fairly new and exotic feature on printers. LPD, Netware and Appletalk support aren't. Any printer you connect to this, by the way, already can be printed to directly from Unix via LPD (at the very least). But if you want to manage a single print queue for, say, logging and accounting purposes, all you need to do to bring Unix clients under this is to add four simple lines to your Samba config for each printer this is managing.
On another note: I've never seen an HP network printer that didn't support LPD natively. It's the baseline protocol for network printers.
and thank God for that, too -- I can't stand HP print software that displays an animated sheet of paper coming out of the printer.
give me a plain print driver: lean and functional, that is enough
I installed support for a JetDirect Printer at work. Windows wouldn't even see it without the JetDirect software. There is a version of the JetDirect software for Solaris:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/networ king/software/ja242en.readme.unx
So if asked real nice maybe they would port it to Linux.
If you want something, ask those who can provide.
If you won't ask, don't complain.
Someone has just published in freshmeat, a package named ULPR.
This software is able to connect to a LPD, TCP (raw) or SMB protocols in order to print.
So to print to the HP printer, just type
$ ulpr -P smb://server/HP_server
I've got an HP LaserJet 2100TN with PostScript and ethernet at home and it works perfectly with my Linux boxen. Setting up the JetDirect was a breeze. I just telnetted to the printer, set the JetDirect up there before finally configuring my printcap to send raw and text stuff to the correct IP addresses.
You mean for calling you an idiot?
I'm only an engineer, and can't speak for why upper management doesn't offer a Vectra bundled with Linux; we do support Linux on Vectra, through Linuxcare, but we do not ourselves sell desktop PCs with Linux. A thought on this is that Linux is not a desktop solution, yet, but works well for servers, workstations etc.
The whole point of my logic was that HP *should care* because we are using the products internally on Linux, and needs to support *itself*, and if it can't support itself, it won't progress. So if we're selling PCs with Linux support, even if we don't ourselves install or support Linux, and we're using our PCs with Linux, it stands to reason that other people are as well, and if only out of self interest by support our own needs, we'll also be meeting the needs and interests of others as well.
We don't use Epson printers because HP printers are better ^^
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
First off, my comments were mainly directed at his outrage at not being able to use lpr from a linux box to talk to the print server. And at least for that application, I think it would be more efficient to go directly to the printer via lpr.
But I do understand the utility of a single queue. But at the same time, I understand the target market for this appliance from HP, and heterogeneous networks probably aren't high on the list. It's designed as a small appliance for Windows shops. I would hazard a guess, that most linux shops would have the internal expertise, that if they wanted to have something like this that supports linux as well as other OS's, they would have built it ages ago on their own. Probably using similar hardware that had been recycled from a user upgrade in the past.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
The IBM Infoprint printers are a bit pricey, but they're pretty nice too, and IBM is giving us all sorts of cool stuff so you should all suppor them and buy their hardware :-)
Hopefully their web page doesn't still suck. www.printers.ibm.com
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Before you try to hang HP for this, think about why they might do this. The Linux in the hardware is a known quantity. They can support it without problems, it doesn't change, etc. Windows is also a known quantity. Windows NT Service Pack 6a is a certain set of libraries and executables. There may be other software issues, but the majority of stuff is standard. However, Linux is NOT a known quantity. It's would be hell for a general purpose support staff to support. Which distro, which kernel, which patches, which glibc, which utilities? The fact that the kernel upgrade notes list a dozen and a half required versions of certain software is indicitive of this. For Windows, a support person (or a piece of software like Internet Explorer) can say, okay, make sure you have Service Pack 6a installed to use this. In the Linux arena, they either have to support a specific distribution (the stock version of RedHat 6.1) or else deal with a support nightmare of trying to make sure everybody is on the same page. It makes a lot of sense for HP to not support Linux as a client under these circumstances.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
ans: A stable cheap operating system
HP has their own unix OS - you don't get much cheaper than that
What have they saved?
ans: Shitloads of development money
2) It's ALREADY DONE. They already pay developers
What has the open source movement gained?
ans: nuffin.
First - why do they owe you anything? Using "your" product helps prove that it's a real product.
Is this a model for future company involvement in Linux/Open source software?
Answer is an exercise for the student
No, answer is for the company involved, in this case HP, who has just also announced the formation (with other companies) of an Open Source lab. They have also recently committed to making linux binaries work on hpux and supporting linux as an OS on hp big iron.
You've chosen the wrong target for your teen angst on this one.
I don't think that one can reach any conclusions from that spec sheet. Under Printers it says "Any LPD-enabled network printer". Under OS (as a part of the title) it says SMB over TCP/IP. Under browsers it only lists Microsoft Explorer and Netscape.
My conclusion is that the tech department gave the marketing department a spec sheet with a lot of information on it, and the marketing people reorganized it to make it look good on a web page. Never mind the sense or logic.
One logical interpretation would be that it's a network based printer. That they only supply printer drivers for Windows. And that it is running Samba internalls. But there are lots of other possibilities. My guess as "most probably correct" is that if you can print to a recent HP JetDirect printer, then you can print to this, though it may have advanced features that you can't use. The question is, however, how much $$ would I be willing to gamble. (Ans.: I'm chintzy.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
A couple of things to consider.
1. Companies create products for target markets. HP is targetting the current and most lucrative market - the Windows user market. It's nothing personal, just business.
2. If they're allowing Windows to print to a Linux print server, then perhaps they are using Samba or an equivalent. Linux can print to a Samba print share. Dunno about the others, but I assume you could get in an hack it a little. HP may not give support or advice on printing this way, but that's what the How-To's are for.
I'd like to see HP come around and publish documents on configuring alternative OS's to print to their print server, but they've picked their market. They've committed support personel qualified in supporting that market. And for some reason they've decided not to target other less lucrative markets. We've dealt with that from the beginning, no use whining about it now. It's good that they're using Linux rather than NT for a product. If you want them to document Linux client-side setup and hire a support staff qualified in Linux client setup, don't flame them - just let them know you're a Linux user or part of an office of Linux users that would like to be supported - business is determined by demand (which is why the DEA will never win), so if they feel there's enough of a demand they'll surely capitulate...
Be aware that the average Linux user is miles ahead of the average Windows user in knowledge and capability in system management and may very well not need HP to hire a support staff for Linux. Documentation would be helpfull, but redundant - we've got enough of that already.
The only missing item would be to mention somewhere the word "geek". That reminds me, we haven't had a Jon Katz article in a while.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
It's not that they won't allow you to run Linux, it's that they don't support it. I would guess that your warranty/support agreement states something to that effect -- if it doesn't, then that's the issue I would bring directly to them.
Obviously, most of the big hardware suppliers are having a hard time adjusting to the openness of Linux -- they've been dealing directly and exclusively with Microsoft for so long, the though that they would even be allowed to distribute the specs to their speciialized tools is probably still fairly foreign to them.
--- begin karma whoring ---
I suppose that it's also possible that Microsoft could have a "non-support" clause buried somewhere in its contracts with big PC manufacturers, barring them from providing support for other operating systems.
--- end karma whoring ---
Can no one read? Go back. Look again. It says it supports any LPD compliant printer! JetDirect always has supported LPD out of the box! Geez.
(If the obvious hasn't struck you yet, Linux uses LPD to print.)
It would work with OS/2 and Pathworks in addition to any *nix with Samba. What's the problem? It can be managed via a browser! We have HP switches here, and the embedded web browser works great, has nifty traffic charts and error logs, works with Netscape and IE, etc. Frankly, this is a big improvement over the usual NT server setup.
They just don't want to support Linux.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Anyone else just realize that:
HP++ = IQ
in the same sense that
IBM-- = HAL.
or
VMS++ = WNT (Windows NT)
I'm surprised that I haven't seen this pointed out before.
--Lenny
... hardware is not something you can download the source code for to get it for free.
I think you'll find you can. Sort of.
If you happen to have a fab. But that's a minor implementation detail.
...of something I've been telling y'all for a while.
Free operating systems shift the balance of power towards hardware vendors. The "revolution" is plainly not of any benefit or concern to these companies. The ultimate destiny will be thousands of pieces of hardware running thousands of different Linuxes. Company X will only support *their* linux. This could be a prelude to HP getting into workstation sales. Then in order to get support, you either have to buy an HP workstation and run their Linux on it, or run Windows.
Hmmm... I wonder what an announcement from HP stating that they were getting into the Linux workstation business would do to their stock price.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
No you're way off. They are not print servers.
They are development machines which we use to edit and compile and print source and other documents from.
They use the HP jetdirects to print (the Jetdirect models we have DO support linux, although I didn't set it up so I don't know how it works exactly.)
Also, it's not a 25 man shop. We have over 1700 employees worldwide. (Have a look if you like http://www.dcstrans.com)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
You forgot:
Napster
DeCSS
Apple's New Color Scheme
Richard Stallman
GPL
Linus
Transmeta
The most probable reason for their not claiming support for anything but Windows is that they are not prepared to do customer assistance for SAMBA. The development team made it to run Linux and probably SAMBA, but that has nothing to do with support. Also (as was mentioned in an above post) Linux on the client side can be such a variable situation that it becomes difficult to prepare support staff in a timely fashion.
Overall, I would guess that Linux work on the client, but you are on your own:)
(sorry for the bad grammar) BUT: Supported Printers: Any LPD-enabled network printer
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
it is my understanding that the new box is an actual print server IE: the jet direct boxes will talk to the print server, the print server will comnnect to the Novel tree/NT tree adn get the spool jobs. this should eliminate the load on the Novel and NT servers, so they stop crashing, but not the JetDirect boxes. the JetDirect boxes seem to do well enough if they pull from a network Q. if you are printing direct to the box, I can see where you would be crashing.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
"but (like much of the industry) doesn't think Linux has any business as a client/workstation OS"
I think HP has conceded that the OS is stable enough to run a piece of equipment that gets quite a pounding all day long (print server). All they are waiting for on the client side is a pretty desktop, easy install and a "Windows compatable" compatable ofice suite (with a pretty front end and easy install)
Dirty Pirate Hooker
OK it's disappointing but I wouldn't say it's unusual. There's a lot of situations where Linux is used serverside but it's not supported on the client side. Hopefully with enough demand they'll realise that not supporting Linux based clients was the wrong thing to do. (please note: don't flame them give them valid reasons for them to support Linux. M$ $ux, Linux rules is not going to do any good, neither is Support Linux or I'll pour a bowl of hot grits down your pants.)
Predictability? Well, I'm not going to debate Linux/Windows differences here. I will admit that they are making a marketing decision to support the largest group of client systems out there. That being said, I will point out that the specifications at HP's web site (URL below) says that they support SMB over TCP/IP. This says to me that Samba is supported, whether they like it or not as SMB is a published standard. http://www.hp.com/printappliance/specifications.ht ml
What the heck are you talking about? Predictability??? What part of lpr/lpd support is unpredictable?
While we recognize that an IQ is generally a good thing to have, as of this time we don't support it within out management staff.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
I know you can rename VLANs and change what VLANs ports belong to on the fly. But in the version I have (which came with the hardware, purchased less than three months ago) you can not change the NUMBER of VLANs without a reboot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't buy this product until HP fixes it.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Let me start of by saying that I think HP should support any kind of client--we all need to print, why are they leaving 20% of us out in the cold?
However, just because they use Linux within the appliance means nothing. Blenders have a whirling blade inside of them--but does GE support tossing your blender into a whirling blade? I doubt it.
The point is that the technology a company uses to create a product and the need that the product fulfills are totally orthogonal issues.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I'm not sure about the 4000, but most other jetdirect cards are just LPD in hardware anyways. I've set tons of them up with linux and other unix machines, all it takes is telling htem the "printer" is the ip of the jetdirect card. Then, you can let the JD take care of the spooling and it takes a happy little paralell interface to the printer itself.
:)
In other words, if this one isn't a glorified LPD server, find one that is or get tons of the little ones
Erik
The specifications pages says that it supports any LPD enabled printer. Does this not count as linux support??
Thats true. Good thing most laptops have an option to turn off the cpu varience in the BIOS. I haven't had a problem with my Dell. (Actually, I turned the cpu varience off before I installed linux on it.) 8*)
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
No. Printing from UNIX is not supported at this time.
Maybe, just maybe some people ought to stop to feel the urge to consider everything they do not like as Anti Linux.
I am sure no-one in any of the HP-UX groups is going to complain about that. Moderate me down to -5 if you want, but this time someone has made a clown of himself. Grow up - the world does not have to be Linux compatible.
Well, BIOS is just a piece of software, so if you have a jumperless MOBO, you overclock that in software.
;-)
G
"Maybe that update to X11 6.5 will help with the new printer protocols."
I assume you're being sarcastic?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Getting a Win2K computer to print is amazingly easy. Almost as easy as using the chooser on a macintosh.
Start-> Settings-> Printers-> Add Printer
and viola! you're in a Winbloze wizard that will find any damn printer on your network.
now how is that harder than trying to accomplish the same thing on a linux box?
WTF were you thinking, HP?
If HP is using GPL'ed source in their product, where are the sources? They would answer the question of whether it really supports Linux as a client. I suspect it's more than just not giving back, it's violating the terms of the GPL.
Pachooka-san
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. --Thomas Jefferson
Ever notice that HP is one letter lower than IQ?
Creepy or what?
Or IBM is one less than HAL?
Mulder, Scully, help us!
I hope I'm not saying anything out of hand here, but...
I'm in a 80 man shop. We use HPUX. We use HP printers. We use HP PCs and laptops running Windows NT and Linux. Linux accounts for about a third of our systems, for development use. It's really stupid that HP is not supporting Linux, officially, with this product, as we are as likely to use it internally as anyone else, externally, and we can't until it *officially* supports our needs, otherwise we can't get any help from the guys across the street.
We use print servers. We make print servers. We make printers. This is just something stupid that I hope gets resolved soon
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I would say that the average /.er probably controbutes a lot of hot air, perhaps a bug report or two and maybe a low profile toy project. Only a very small % of Linux users controbute code, and /. isn't Linux exclusive.
Thad
Thad
Last time I checked, overclocking was done at the HARDWARE level.
--
The facts expressed here belong to all, the opinions to me. The distinction between fact and opinion is yours to decide.
Why should you need such an appliance to print
from Linux to an lpd-enabled printer?
I can understand the need from Windows, but from
Linux it makes no sense.
So the appliance is one more tax paid by "user friendly"
amateurs to conserve their noble laziness illusions.
Use LPD with port "raw" for PCL and "text" for plain text. If that doesn't work, which it wont with the original Jetdirects w/o the firmware SIMM, then use telnet print to port 9100. I must humbly admit I haven't tried this under a *nix, but in OpenVMS you create a print queue using the telnet symbiont as a processor. The print server will pass whatever crap it receives from port 9100 to the parallel port. Those old JetDirects also don't hold their configuration (or support DHCP) w/o the SIMM, so you need BOOTP to hand them their IP config every time they boot. I have this setup at home with OpenVMS, OS/2, and Windows 98 boxes all printing happily.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That validates my expirience with HP. I like the products and use them a lot my favorite is the HP 48 GX..:-)
Once I wrote an email and asked them polite about linux software for my HP 850 DJ Printer to calibrate the ink tanks, I didn't even get an answer...:-(
Does anyone known, if something is available for this job on linux?
It would be nice if someone would start a database on the web, to look up companies support for linux. I would like to buy products from companies that really support Linux. I know about the many HW databases, but they just tell me if a product is useable under linux, not if the company behind actually supports it (making specs available - publish drivers (GPL))
Michael
Although I'm not any sort of overclocking wizard, I think that video cards are overclocked using software, aren't they?
Doh!
Gidday there, we have the HP Jet Direct 300.
It's great, it runs LPD, and you can configure it through a telnet session.
It's cheaper and more reliable than using an old PC as an SMB/LPD server.
The JetDirect is mentioned also in the Printing HOWTO.
RTFM!!!
"However, it fails to recognize Linux, or any non-Microsoft operating system as a valid client. In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client."
Why couldn't you configure a linux client to use this thing? It syas it requires an IP based SMB share. Hmm... Windows can do that, and so can linux. Linux isn't in that list, probably because either FUD or PHBs or a simple typo.
"You'll die up there son, just like I did!" - Abe Simpson
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
When a company gets as big as HP, there sometimes isn't just one corporate culture, but many.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Thanks for making me feel better... Charter just rolled out cable modem service here, and I was afraid they were going to be a bitch about hooking computers up and shit... not that they can tell whether I'm using NAT and shit... am I gonna have to let them fuck with one of my computers and shove a network card in it and set it up on Windoze just so I can shove in a router and change all the settings back again, or will the techs just not care? I guess the ONE installer around here got the job because the other ONE installer sucked ass at it while he was putting it in at the guy's house... I could go for a new job...
Doesn't this say it all for the industries attitude towards linux. Lets use linux for reliable servers where licensing is cheep. As for client desktops, we don't fancy the cost of supporting inexperienced users on many different flavoured distributions.
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
IIRC, HP is a big customer of WireSpeed, an embedded systems developer that was recently bought by Red Hat. Over the last year or two they switched over to using Linux for virtually all of their development. It is possible that WireSpeed wrote the software for "Print Appliance" for HP, who probably didn't care _what_ the box ran, just that it met their specifications (which probably required it work with Windows).
You're not listening, you knee-jerk reactionary. I'm not a zealot. I work with mostly windows at work supporting it. All that I'm speaking of is quite true. It's an issue that was brought to Microsoft's attention, and they didn't want to deal with it. It's going to be an issue all because MS doesn't deal with generic type printer filters but wants a specific driver for each and every piece of hardware. Don't you realise that that's why there are so many driver bugs in each vendor's driver? Each and every vendor customizes their drivers specifically to them. If the chipset/asic vendors perfected their drivers you wouldn't be seeing a Creative TNT driver, a Diamond TNT driver, and an STB TNT driver. You'd just see a TNT driver that works equally well. It's a fundamental flaw, and it's at the base of the issue with the NT printers not working on a 2000 client. Try it yourself and not that it fails completely.
The CD-ROM works fine without that disk.
You're actually paying the money for the third-party software from Adaptec. Older versions of EZ CD Creator generate a blue-screen on Win2K. It's actually a pretty good deal compared to buying EZ-CD and Direct CD straight from Adaptec.
I just want to know why you need a shockwave menu to pop up when you insert blank media.
- My password is slashdot
Geeze, just accept it! Windows > Linux Just because that's the way it is doen't mean that that's the way it should be. But it's the reality that we live in.
Or perhaps not FUD, just stupidity.
HP networked laser printers routinely support anything that'll speak to lpd. My HP LaserJet 2100 TN certainly supports Linux (and every other *nix, and Mac, and Windows), and it looks like the 4000 does too.
(Okay, sure, it doesn't have a fancy graphic interface to control exotic printer options like it does for the Mac or Windows -- but show me where the API for such an interface is defined in Linux or any other 'nix. I know, it's in progress.)
Get a grip.
-- Alastair
In Red Hat anyway. Use `printtool` from an xterm, and select Add, then choose a SMB/Windows 95/NT Printer from the given menu.
http://www.zdnet.com/ eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2599017,00.html
Now, given that this is priced at $1249(US), why couldn't/wouldn't an admin simply build a modified Linux (or even NT) print server with spare parts and a big disk for less money?
The biggest problem companies are facing in supporting linux is that it's just to much for their support crew to handle. Imagine a phone tech support guy trying to explain to a linux newbie how to edit their startup files. He'd have to know that Redhat uses a much different /etc/rc.d than Debian does. And that there are also some differences in Slackware's setup, and that Corel is also very different. Already I can hear the cries starting...LSB!! LSB!! But where is the LSB? I haven't heard a word from them in months. We've got to get Linux Standardized on it's libraries and file locations. The only other possible outcome I can see is fragmentation and/or the winning out of one distribution such as Redhat (not that the others would dissapear, only that they would be forced to comply with the winning company's standards in order to remain compatible with apps. I really can't blame HP here. I'm guessing they've just got to many dumb MCSE tech support guys that can't support the numerous other OSs that are out there. Hello...LSB anybody home????
How come out of all the Vectras (The reliable, manageable corporate pc (tm))on your page, not ONE is offered with Linux? If you don't even sell it to the desktop, why would you support it on the desktop? Your logic is flawed. If you are likely to use it internally, then you are unlikely to use the same products that you are selling your customers. Why don't you guys just sell epson printers while you're at it?
As a sort of joke, I send HP tech support and email: "Please send me the linux drivers for the HP2100." Here's the response:
d oc/lpg40837.html. CD Burners ship with win9x, NT drivers. You pay us $25+shipping for the win2k drivers.
Hewlett-Packard does not write Linux drivers for the HP LaserJet 2100. Your Linux provider is responsible for providing these drivers. The HP LaserJet 2100 is backward compatible with most older HP LaserJet drivers. You should be able to run the HP LaserJet 2100 using another Hewlett-Packard LaserJet driver provided by Linux.
Also, check out HP's "policy" on win2k drivers: http://w ww.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_
Thought I'd point out that you should get much better performance from Nat32 than you're getting with ICS. Check out www.nat32.com.
Yeah? and will it also seach the building and find the damn CD that it asks you to insert?
-Pete
I can't believe that this was enough to warrant a story submission.
What do you mean, "Fails to recognize"? Give us some background here. It apparently takes jobs from SMB clients and prints them to the printer using LPR (which basically every networked laser printer supports these days, including all the HPs, Tektronix, and so on, as well as the older HP Jetdirect cards and servers.)
By 'fails to recognize' do you mean that HP WebJet Admin can't do a printer discovery on your network and discover LPR queues on your machines magically? Or do you mean that when you use smbclient to try to print something to the HP Print Server, it won't take your request? Or do you mean that you can't print to it via LPR, which isn't part of its design function in the first place?
HP is really missing the boat on this one, anyway. You should be able to print to it via lpr, appletalk, novell, or smb; It should support TCP/IP, IPX, and Appletalk DDP. All of this is provided with standard linux distributions now, and none of it is difficult to locate. As usual, HP misses the boat.
Even my favorite product that they make, the HP Procurve 4000M switches, is fairly lame in some respects; In order to increase the number of VLANs on the box, you must restart the switch. I bet Cisco's laughing about that one all day every day.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The answer should be pretty obvious to everyone.
Anyone looked a the list of exploits for the Linux LPD subsystem? Its long... If they were smart, they'd use BSD so they wouldn't have to worry about GPL issues. Hey, since the box is using Linux, don't they have to provide the source code or references to where the source code is located?
And don't forget that you can still print to the box through samba unless you're a tard.
It is not like the printing methods for Unix systems is a standardized system. It is a real pain. Maybe that update to X11 6.5 will help with the new printer protocols.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
What have HP gained?
ans: A stable cheap operating system
What have they saved?
ans: Shitloads of development money
What has the open source movement gained?
ans: nuffin.
Is this a model for future company involvement in Linux/Open source software?
Answer is an exercise for the student
When I were your age, all round here were fields...
Actually, you might argue that they could be making more money if they would enable their printers to be upgradable. since right now they're losing sales on some devices because they won't work well with other operating systems.
But hey, they can't deliver drivers for Win2k, why should I expect them to understand the needs or destires of anyone else?
Even if making it easy for hobbyists to upgrade their printers isn't their motivation, I would think that there would be some motivation to standardize on formatter boards for printers. It'd lead to a standard interface to the printer mechanisms, the software drivers and networking hardware, which would all mean economies of scale, simpler designs and greater profits.
But one wouldn't expect an industry dinosaur to understand how innovation can lead to greater profits.