Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?
From: Terence (terence.parker_at_gmail.com)
Date: 03/10/05
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Date: 9 Mar 2005 19:45:43 -0800
First of all, thanks for the excellent reply - much appreciated.
And second of all, all three deployments are using Gentoo Linux -
possibly not the best choice for production systems, but it does at
least present me with the good opportunity to upgrade packages fairly
quickly if necessary... so for that matter my CUPSD is fairly up to
date, as is Samba (though the exact version numbers evade me this
minute).
Previously, the Laserjet 2100 was connected to a Red Hat 8 setup - but
I had similar problems with regards to junk being output by the printer
occasionally.
Matt Payton wrote:
> > 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through 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 ?
Yes, I am very much a parallel port person myself if possible - just
like I prefer real COM port modems vs. all this pseudo winmodem crap
you get these days (though that said nobody uses Modems over here
anymore anyways). Strangely though, the 3330 works even less well
through parallel port - presumably since it still needs a driver
(firmware?) layer to work properly, and also scanning through lp would
seem silly.
I have tried both usb-uhci as well as uhci, both loaded as modules, but
both have similar problems. Basically the printer needs restarting a
lot now due to a 3330 design fault (scanner warm up takes exceptionally
long) - but every time we do this the server also needs to be
restarted. Strange. There are no other USB devices connected to the
machine.
Anyhow it's not important, as the printer looks close to needing to be
repaired/replaced anyways - either of which would solve the problem.
> > 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but
once
> > shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver.....
> A printer you yourself call "crap", yet you expect good results ?
Well yes, it was a crap printer, and certainly not my choice... but
nonetheless it's part of this company's inventory so I had to deal with
it! That said, it works fine in Windows. According to linuxprinting.org
it should work fine in linux too, but I had problems with that. Perhaps
I should use CUPS LPD/LPR printing directly from WinXP as suggested for
the Laserjet 2100.... this might help.
> 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.
Lucky you! Well, that said, I do have a server which prints to an HP
Laserjet 2200M and that has no problems whatsoever... so I guess it's
really hit and miss depending on the printer?
> 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 )
> [.....]
>
> Some possible solutions :
>
> - 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.
> .........
Previously this printer was connected to a Novell Netware 3.12 server,
but since that's insanely old has since been migrated to linux. Gentoo
has been fine so far as an internet gateway, squid proxy, e-mail/web
server etc... but printing is the only problem I seem to be having
problems with.
As mentioned, it runs Gentoo, so everything is compiled fro source and
fairly new. CUPS is configured for raw printing already - drivers are
client side and provided by HP for Windows.
I remember once upon a time trying LPRng and having problems with it,
so then switched to cups. But that was a while ago.
In any case, I think your suggestion of getting windows to connect
direct through LPR/LPD is a good one, so I shall try that first and see
what results I get. Since I have managed to get a 2200M working fine on
a similar setup, I half suspect that the printer perhaps doesn't have
enough memory inside. But I can hardly tell the company they ought to
buy a new printer, since that wouldn't seem a viable solution for a
perfectly good printer. If I can't solve the problem in linux, I might
just have to do the print sharing through windows... and then put up
with restarting the computer every few days!
> 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.
I generally recommend linux servers for all my deployments, though time
and time again I do still find a few recurring problems - printing
being one of them. Samba would usually work fine, the server would be
very stable, both apache and sendmail/postfix would also be fine... but
printing I just can't seem to get it right. Yet you have convinced me
that many people DO in fact have no problems, so I have no idea!!
Perhaps it's just by chance that all the printers I deal with have
problems? (As the other poster said... they're all from HP - that's
coincidental BTW).
Incidentally, I personally use Macs and my Epson EPL-6200L printer
causes me problems there too... but i'm convinced it's driver related.
Printer sharing in OS X never seems to work for me - everything would
just go stale after a couple of print outs and a reboot would be
necessary. *sigh*
Windows faxing would suck if as a result of windows being a load of
trollop the machine needs to be restarted all the time. Incidentally,
the same people who have the Laserjet 2100 that i'm trying to
troubleshoot do all their faxing through a Win98 machine with WinFax
installed. The other day they had to reinstall Winfax for some reason,
and the machine itself is very unstable (Win98). I'm half tempted to
just have them buy an eMac and fax through that. How sophisticated a
fax system does one need? You can receive with the mac's built in
faxing capabilities, and send to multiple recipients using the system
address book. Sounds enough for me!!
Anyways, thanks again for the help.
Terence
- Next message: Andrew Schulman: "Re: 4 NICs, 3 nets one and confused bunny in over his head"
- Previous message: Carl Fink: "Re: Cable modem poops out on me"
- In reply to: Matt Payton: "Re: Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?"
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