Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?
From: Matt Payton (mattpayton_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/10/05
- Next message: R Kannan: "Re: smbumount does not seem to be unmounting"
- Previous message: Jacob Oost: "Re: Cable modem poops out on me"
- In reply to: terence.parker_at_gmail.com: "Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Next in thread: Terence: "Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Reply: Terence: "Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:00:01 GMT
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 05:26:19 -0800, terence.parker wrote:
> My point is that linux print sharing sucks, not that linux sucks.
> Defensive linux advocates would no doubt tell me "no, it's the
> manufacturers faults for not providing better drivers" - well fine, but
> all the same, regardless of the reasons, linux printing sucks. Or at
> least that's the impression I get.
>
> I've deployed several servers, many with printing problems:
>
> 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer
> is reset machine needs to be too - the USB device is lost and not
> re-detected even if removing/reloading USB & print modules, and ptal-hp.
This sounds more like a usb issue, and therefore not really related to
printing...meaning, if said printer were connected in some other way
perhaps it would perform better/more reliably. And, if some other usb
device were connected to the linux box, it too may have issues ? Maybe
something flakey with the usb config on your Linux box ?
> 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once
> shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver which had weird
> margins, and even then everything stops after a day until print services
> restarted.
A printer you yourself call "crap", yet you expect good results ?
> 3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would
> start printing junk and print queue would need to be cleared. This is
> annoying as it wastes paper, and I get called by the users often to say
> "can you clear the print queue". They're certainly not getting a very
> good impression of their linux server.
I have seen this occaisionaly. But on more than just *nix print servers.
Usually when a user tried printing some unusually large file, or some
strange file type. Whatever the cause, I've seen it when printing through
Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac.
> Actually, in this e-mail i'm asking about item (3) above. Whilst this
> printer works fine in windows, when shared with cups/samba every week or
> so a windows client would cause the printer to start outputting junk. I
> have the printer in cups set to 'raw', and the clients using the HP
> driver. Needless to say that when shared in windows this printer works
> fine - except windows itself hangs once in a while, but that's another
> matter.
>
> Is this just something I have to put up with as far as linux printing is
> concerned?
I wouldn't think so, no. Many places depend on linux for printing, and it
works quite well.
For example, we replaced a very flakey Windows NT print server with linux
2 years ago, and it's been rock solid. Serving over 1200 clients, 200
print queus, 24/7, 7 days a week, 365/year.
>Or does anyone have any better suggestions?
Hard to say, since you included no info on :
- Distribution of Linux
- version of Cups
- How the print queues are configured in Cups ( drivers ? filters ? ) -
Version of Samba
- Version of Windows clients
- Print driver version ( not specifics, just if they're reasonably up to
date )
But...
- Is your distribution up to date ? All recent patches installed ?
- Did you try building Cups and/or Samba from source, or are you just
using the version(s) that came with your distribution ? Any updates to
Samba/Cups for your distribution ? Did you install them ?
- Are you doing any filtering on the print queues on the Linux box ? I've
*usually* found it more relaible to do *no* filtering/formatting on the
print server, and let the client take care of it all.
- Any other usb devices being used besides that one printer ? Does that
usb printer work on a differnt Linux server ?
Some possible solutions :
- Don't use Samba. Windows ( since winnt 4 ) natively supports lpr
printing. Cups is a lpr/lpd server. That would remove one thing from the
equation. And, I've found the performance to be better ( YMMV ).
- Don't use Cups. Personally, I prefer LPRng. That is what we're using
at work with very good results. This is not suggesting that Cups is
bad...Only that I prefer a different print server software.
- Do no filtering/formatting on the print server. Not exactly sure how
this is accomplished with Cups, but I know it can be done. That way, all
the formatting is done by the client side drivers, and the print server
simply queues the job, and sends it on it's way to the printer...Not
changing it in any way.
- If possible, build the latest version of Cups/Samba from source, instead
of using the binaries included with your distribution. Yes, it's less
convinient, but sometimes it's just a matter of a bug in a specific
packaged version of software.
- Connect the usb printer to a jet direct type device, and configure your
linux print server to send jobs to that, rather than having the printer
directly connected. Costs a few $$$, but if your problem is strictly usb,
that would solve it.
> I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
> wrong and my problem fixed!
Hardly our place to prove anything. I ( and many others ) have found
Linux to be a very fine solution for many things, serving print jobs to
Windows clients included. But that is not to say it's the right solution
for all situations/problems. Or that it is necessarily easy to get going.
I do not doubt you're having problems. But that does not mean that
"linux print sharing sucks". Using that logic, Windows faxing would suck
if I had problems with Winfax ( I do BTW, but that's another story ).
Maybe my modem sucks. Or maybe Winfax sucks. Maybe I'm sending
garbage to Winfax, and that's the problem. But it doesn't mean Windows
faxing sucks.
Anyway...What you are trying to do is not unreasonable. Some good links
follow.
Samba printing :
http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/printing.html
A Decent printing book, available on Amazon :
http://tinyurl.com/6qk5z
-- - Matt -
- Next message: R Kannan: "Re: smbumount does not seem to be unmounting"
- Previous message: Jacob Oost: "Re: Cable modem poops out on me"
- In reply to: terence.parker_at_gmail.com: "Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Next in thread: Terence: "Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Reply: Terence: "Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Relevant Pages
|
