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Re: struggling w/ reliable printers on CUPS in small office

by Bradley Noyes

I thought i’d respond to this thread to circle back on my solution, which mostly works. The progression of printer connections was the following, the last one is the one that worked. imacs ——> WiFi (dhcp) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet (dhcp) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet (static IP) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet ——> Linux Cups Server ——> ethernet ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernet ——> Linux Cups Server ——> USB (over rj45) ——> HP Printer imacs ——> ethernat ——> Linux Cups Server on Raspberry PI ——> USB ——> HP Printer As mentioned by contributors to this thread, the network stack on the HP Printers seem to be flaky, so any attempt that involved the HP Printer’s network stack would fail at some point. Its strange that all of the HP Printers in the office seem to be affected by this. Everything i tired that involved a network link to the HP Printers was very flaky. My second-to-last ditch effort was to try using USB over ethernet; since the printers and the Linux Cups Server are not physically close and i have network drops next to each, i tried the USB over ethernet dongles, which didn’t take. The devies were recognized, but i couldn’t print over the USB device. There were some postings online about setting some serial parameters, but i didn’t want to mess around with it too much. So my final solution was to use an old Raspberry Pi i had kicking around which can be placed next to the printers and connect via USB, and it can also be connected to the office network via ethernet. This has been rock solid and clears my desk of an old r-Pi. In the end i can’t really come to a conclusion other that the HP Printer’s TCP stack is flaky. The rest of the network seems to be fine, i’ve never seen any troubles with anything else on the network. I’d occasional see the printer’s settings claim it is on-line, but have no IP address, which was always suspect to me. the printers operate reliably if using USB. Anyway, just wanted to let y’all know that a raspberry-pi running CUPS was the best solution, and thank you for responding. Cheers, - brad > On Jan 25, 2019, at 11:27, John Stoffel via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> wrote: > > > Bradley> tl;dr: Can someone recommend a printer (or printer brand) > Bradley> that is reliable for printing via CUPS? > > In general, CUPS is pretty darn reliable. But can you post some logs > from when the printer goes offline? > > Bradley> I’m struggling w/ printers in a small office and i've > Bradley> struggled to get any kind of guidance on-line. The volume of > Bradley> pages printed at the office is probably around 100 pages a > Bradley> day and there are 4 printers — all HPs and all consumer grade > Bradley> — each printer has its purpose, e.g. there's an 11x17 > Bradley> printer, one color laser, one BW laster, one color > Bradley> inkjet. The office is all iMACs, which connect to a Linux > Bradley> CUPS server. The iMacs were networking directly w/ the > Bradley> printers, but i added the CUPS server to try to mitigate the > Bradley> poor reliability with only marginal results. > > So this is a key issue to me, if printing from the iMACs (which > version of MacOS?) was un-reliable, then it points to a problem > somewhere else. As others have said, maybe the power is bad? But > have you checked your network as well? Do you have a switch or two > which are dropping packets randomly? Yes, TCP should handle stuff > like this, but maybe it's a wierd corruption issue somewhere? > > Bradley> Routinely printers become “paused” in CUPS so i need to go in > Bradley> and ‘unpause’ them, also some printers just fall of the > Bradley> network entirely. Inevitably the only printer that works most > Bradley> of the time is the ink-jet which is a lot more expensive to > Bradley> re-fill. > > Can you move your most used laser to the same network port/cable as > the inkjet and see if that improves reliability? > > Bradley> I’m looking for a reliable solution. If anyone has a > Bradley> recomendation that’d be great! > > I've got a Brother MFC-8860DN laser printer which has lasted me over > 10+ years at home and been quite reliable. The only problem is that > it's PostScript implementation is now getting long in the tooth. Best > damn $400 printer I've ever gotten. > > John > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

May 2, 2019

Re: Atomic Pi

by Aljerin Butler,Jr.

Interested in tinkering with Raspberry Pi? http://customdesktopsolutions.mywebcommunity.org/index.php/linux-open-sourc… Al Butler On Wednesday, May 1, 2019, 4:36:12 PM EDT, Tim Keller via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> wrote: This looks pretty cool. https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic-pi?variant=21343701794921 Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers"._______________________________________________ WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

May 1, 2019

Re: Atomic Pi

by JeffA Maillists

Pretty interesting... Basically a Netbook in a SBC form-factor, with a huuuuuggggeee heatsink, LOL. ;-) The price is pretty impressive though!!! And since it's an Atom, it's x86 based instead of arm... Jeff On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 4:36 PM Tim Keller via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> wrote: > This looks pretty cool. > > https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic-pi?variant=21343701794921 > > Tim. > > -- > I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their > constituents as "consumers". > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org >

May 1, 2019

Atomic Pi

by Tim Keller

This looks pretty cool. https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic-pi?variant=21343701794921 Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

May 1, 2019