Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
"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.
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.
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.
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
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!)
> 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
sorry to nit pick, but won't it be
H++;P++
??
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
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.
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."
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.
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
Don't worry about it -- 90% of these posts are from people who either had their brains turned off when they read the specs on this or didn't bother to read it at all.
:-) ... it supports any printer that is ALREADY SUPPORTED by Linux. Wake up and quit bashing companies that are making money. Look at the purpose of this box:
... they're using Linux to replace Windows.
...
This is a PRINT SERVER, not a printer. It is to store print jobs, while the printer is busy doing something else. It is the functional equivalent of attaching a large hard drive to your network printer and giving it Windows drivers.
Read the specs: "Supported Printers: Any LPD-enabled network printer".
Wait a minute folks!
I have a network of 50 computers running Windows and I buy a network laser printer (of almost any make). I hook it up, but have to designate one of the computers as the print server, so that I can specify an UNC name for the printer (\\MACHINE\\SHARE) and thats where the jobs get sent. This can drag an NT or 98 machine to its knees in a network environment.
This box is so that you don't need to assign one of your existing computers to this task. You just add this device to your network and voila, you have a Windows-compatible print server to handle the "hard" work of spooling print jobs and sending them off to the printer.
HPs probably just written a quick piece of software to provide LPD management via Apache (from the list of used software given) and allows connections via SAMBA to spool the jobs. Be HAPPY people, be HAPPY
-- The guy who thinks
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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
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.'"