Don, I would recommend not using LPRng. It is too old. I understand that CUPS seems difficult, but once you understand it, it is the next best thing. In my office, I have setup my kickstart to install 300+ printers on all of my Redhat Linux V3 Workstation machines (100+). You can configure it via console, applet, or even web. Fedora and Redhat has gone that route and I believe that others have too. It is much better than LPRng can every be. Sonny >From: "Don Peterson" <dpeterson@sterilite.com> >Reply-To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug@mail.wlug.org> >To: "Worcester Linux Users Group" <wlug@mail.wlug.org> >Subject: RE: [Wlug] printers >Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 08:13:56 -0400 > >Thanx for the reply John. >I had looked into CUPS but it looked pretty involved (the install and >setup). >Maybe I will give LPRng a shot. > >-----Original Message----- >From: wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org [mailto:wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org] On >Behalf Of John Stoffel >Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 3:51 PM >To: Worcester Linux Users Group >Subject: Re: [Wlug] printers > > >Don> I've got a quick question about printers. Is there a printers.conf > >Don> file in Red Hat like there is in Solaris (I couldn't find one). >Don> Here's my issue: > >Don> I have 5 servers in a 9i RAC array and I don't want to set up my 50 > >Don> printers on each server. Can anyone suggest a way to "copy" >Don> the printers I set up on one server to the other 4? > >Sure, just setup one box as your master, using LPRng. Then you install >LPRng on all the client systems with an /etc/printcap sorta like this: > > # LPRng: /etc/printcap file > # > # Forward all jobs to the print server > # > *:force_localhost@:client:rm=printmaster.foo.com > > >Then when you add/delete printers on the server, they appear on the >client without any intervention. > >Now, I can't say I love LPRng, mostly because the Docs are baroque and >hard to follow, and the output of various commands is also archane. > >You might want to look at using CUPS instead, since it's based on and >support the Internet Printing Protocol. I use CUPS at home and it's >fine. > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug@mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug@mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
LPRng is not that bad for a print server. In the ECE dept at WPI, we use LPRng beause CUPS IMHO is still rather buggy. We've tried switching over to CUPS on many occasions however have always ran into a bug that prevents us from performing the switch over. We've also used CUPS on our other servers to connet to the printer server running LPRng and have run into some troubles with that, which we have not using LPRng. Chuck On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 13:21:45 +0000, Son Nguyen <snguyen@hotmail.com> wrote:
Don,
I would recommend not using LPRng. It is too old. I understand that CUPS seems difficult, but once you understand it, it is the next best thing. In my office, I have setup my kickstart to install 300+ printers on all of my Redhat Linux V3 Workstation machines (100+). You can configure it via console, applet, or even web. Fedora and Redhat has gone that route and I believe that others have too. It is much better than LPRng can every be.
Sonny
>From: "Don Peterson" <dpeterson@sterilite.com> >Reply-To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug@mail.wlug.org> >To: "Worcester Linux Users Group" <wlug@mail.wlug.org> >Subject: RE: [Wlug] printers >Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 08:13:56 -0400 > >Thanx for the reply John. >I had looked into CUPS but it looked pretty involved (the install and >setup). >Maybe I will give LPRng a shot. > >-----Original Message----- >From: wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org [mailto:wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org] On >Behalf Of John Stoffel >Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 3:51 PM >To: Worcester Linux Users Group >Subject: Re: [Wlug] printers > > >Don> I've got a quick question about printers. Is there a printers.conf > >Don> file in Red Hat like there is in Solaris (I couldn't find one). >Don> Here's my issue: > >Don> I have 5 servers in a 9i RAC array and I don't want to set up my 50 > >Don> printers on each server. Can anyone suggest a way to "copy" >Don> the printers I set up on one server to the other 4? > >Sure, just setup one box as your master, using LPRng. Then you install >LPRng on all the client systems with an /etc/printcap sorta like this: > > # LPRng: /etc/printcap file > # > # Forward all jobs to the print server > # > *:force_localhost@:client:rm=printmaster.foo.com > > >Then when you add/delete printers on the server, they appear on the >client without any intervention. > >Now, I can't say I love LPRng, mostly because the Docs are baroque and >hard to follow, and the output of various commands is also archane. > >You might want to look at using CUPS instead, since it's based on and >support the Internet Printing Protocol. I use CUPS at home and it's >fine. > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug@mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug@mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
_______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
-- Chuck Haines chaines@gmail.com ------------------------------------------- Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity WPI Class of 2005 ------------------------------------------- AIM: CyberGrex YIM: CyberGrex_27 ICQ: 3707881 -------------------------------------------
From: "Son Nguyen" <snguyen@hotmail.com>
I would recommend not using LPRng. It is too old.
As an old codger in training, I take that personally. You remind me of Perlis's comment on Algol60: Not perfect, but a big improvement over its successors. I don't even know what LPRng is, I suppose it's the New-Gnu version of the ancient bin/lpr program, from back in the days when programs were more prized for working than for having a Web interface. My printer is attached to a dual boot machine that now runs Linux only, with a Samba server so that Diane can print via the network from her laptop. It worked pretty much the first time, the main problem being getting the Windows laptop to notice it. I can print from the printer/Linux machine, but when I tried to use the much-touted CUPS web-based set-up to connect to the printer from another Linux machine, it went totaly wonky. Certain buttons sent the browser in an apparent infinite loop. (By Turing, you can never be sure, but I waited long with no action) Sometimes it would take me to some crazy random place in the Internet, to pictures of buildings that had the same name as my server machine, as though some mad programmer had rewritten bin/hostname to search Google for its name. It was not high priority, since ftp works and I have to walk to the printer machine anyway to get the paper, so I quit.
I understand that CUPS seems difficult, but once you understand it, it is the next best thing.
At first I thought you were recommending it as second-best, but maybe "next best" means Best Real Soon Now.
In my office, I have setup my kickstart to install 300+ printers on all of my Redhat Linux V3 Workstation machines (100+).
Eh? You need 300 printers for 100 workstations?
You can configure it via console, applet, or even web.
Not me, maybe you can.
Fedora and Redhat has gone that route and I believe that others have too. It is much better than LPRng can every be.
Oh, I suppose, but much better can you make something that does what I used to with "cat scratch.ps >/dev/lp0"? -- Keith
On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 05:26:53PM -0400, Keith Wright wrote:
From: "Son Nguyen" <snguyen@hotmail.com>
I would recommend not using LPRng. It is too old.
As an old codger in training, I take that personally. You remind me of Perlis's comment on Algol60: Not perfect, but a big improvement over its successors.
As a young whippersnapper out of training... "Heh, reminds me of the last time I ran into Algol60... Er, wait, no it doesn't."
I don't even know what LPRng is, I suppose it's the New-Gnu version of the ancient bin/lpr program, from back in the days when programs were more prized for working than for having a Web interface.
'Course we'll skip the fact that the reason things were prized for working back then was that the majority didn't... And the web interfaces are generally a sign of civilization moving from the 'How can we eat?' stage past the 'Why do we eat?' and straight to the 'Where shall we have lunch?' stage... (Did I mention that LPRng was started in 1986 and hit widespread use in '88 or so? (At least according to the LPRng website)) <SNIP>
I can print from the printer/Linux machine, but when I tried to use the much-touted CUPS web-based set-up to connect to the printer from another Linux machine, it went totaly wonky. Certain buttons sent the browser in an apparent infinite loop. (By Turing, you can never be sure, but I waited long with no action) Sometimes it would take me to some crazy random place in the Internet, to pictures of buildings that had the same name as my server machine, as though some mad programmer had rewritten bin/hostname to search Google for its name.
You had some misconfiguration going on there probably... Your web browser had its auto-magical lookup functionality turned on and went looking for what you specified when it couldn't connect to the address you specified. <SNIP>
You can configure it via console, applet, or even web.
Not me, maybe you can.
Honestly, CUPS is not that hard to configure and use these days. There was a period of history where it was pretty difficult to set up correctly but it has been pretty solid for the last couple of years. And, even in the difficult years, it offered a level of functionality not readily available with the rest of tools in play at the time.
Fedora and Redhat has gone that route and I believe that others have too. It is much better than LPRng can every be.
Oh, I suppose, but much better can you make something that does what I used to with "cat scratch.ps >/dev/lp0"?
-- Keith
You mean, can I make it print gibberish on my non-PS PCL printer? But if that is all you need, then why bother with even old school lpr? On the other hand, if you want conversion to something your printer (whichever one you pick) will actually print, remote printing, printer pools, print job scheduling, and many other modern pieces of functionality... CUPS is probably something you want to look into... And I'd recommend it to the original poster. Frank (Typos and general icky-ness of the email I apologize for, had to recreate it from a bounce message as I discovered a bit of misconfiguration on my recently moved email server...)
From: Frank <fmoody-ug-wlug@moodman.org>
On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 05:26:53PM -0400, Keith Wright wrote:
From: "Son Nguyen" <snguyen@hotmail.com>
I would recommend not using LPRng. It is too old.
And the web interfaces are generally a sign of civilization moving from the 'How can we eat?' stage past the 'Why do we eat?' and straight to the 'Where shall we have lunch?' stage...
I would have thought that 'Why do we eat?' would be a higher stage than 'Where do lunch?', but perhaps it is just a matter of taste. Which question seems more civilized may depend upon whether you are a French philosopher facing a plate full of jellied liver, or a film producer facing a starlet. Though not yet civilized, the web interface may nevertheless be an advance from savagery to barbarism. I worry about security.
I can print from the printer/Linux machine, but when I tried to use the much-touted CUPS web-based set-up to connect to the printer from another Linux machine, it went totaly wonky. Sometimes it would take me to some crazy random place in the Internet, to pictures of buildings that had the same name as my server machine, ...
You had some misconfiguration going on there probably...
Well, I hadn't configured it yet! The machine with the printer has Redhat, Samba, and Cups installed and working fine. The Windows laptop prints; bin/lpr.cups on the Linux server prints. It seemed like it should be easy to make another Linux/Cups machine print, so I did "man lpr", which said a few things not to the point and SEE ALSO CUPS Software Users Manual, http://localhost:631/documentation.html So I did that, which gave me a page: cups> The CUPS web server provides a user-friendly "wizard" interface cups> for adding your printers. Rather than figuring out which device cups> URI and PPD file to use, you can instead click on the cups> appropriate listings and fill in some simple information. Enter cups> the following URL in your web browser to begin: cups> http://localhost:631/admin cups> Click on the Add Printer button to add a printer. So I did that and nothing worked. I just tried it again, to refresh my memory what went wrong. It came up with a login box. I told it my /etc/passwd name and password (Is that what it wants? Why would it need it, I have been logged on all day? Maybe it wants some kind of printer specific name?) It just shows the login box again. I think I got past that point last time by telling it my root password, but I don't feel like trying that again right now. It was no help in setting up the printer, it just showed some forms to fill in with inscrutable labels, and occasionally locked up or hijacked my browser off to random web sites. I remembered that I had given it my password, and I had no idea why it was communicating with anything outside my local network. Paranoia strikes deep, so I stopped.
Your web browser had its auto-magical lookup functionality turned on and went looking for what you specified when it couldn't connect to the address you specified.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with my browser (Firefox), it has never done anything at all like that before. If I had ever seen any hint of an auto-magical lookup functionality I would have shot it.
Honestly, CUPS is not that hard to configure and use these days.
Well, I didn't mean to insult your baby, I was just telling my experience. I have Cups as installed by Redhat, if you could write or point me to a one page HOWTO send a file on this machine to the working printer on the other, that would be great. Maybe we could send it back to the Cups project. The documentation I have seen manages to be both voluminous and elliptical and lacks a short introduction to getting the damned thing working in the simplest case.
There was a period of history where it was pretty difficult to set up correctly but it has been pretty solid for the last couple of years.
Maybe you have learned to do a difficult thing so well that you forgot why it was difficult.
And, even in the difficult years, it offered a level of functionality not readily available with the rest of tools in play at the time.
But if you don't want functionality, just want to send a file upstairs in fewer steps than ftp and telnet...
CUPS is probably something you want to look into...
I looked into it. It was deep and dark and I couldn't see the bottom. I got scared and ran away.
And I'd recommend it to the original poster.
Near as I can remember the original poster asked about a photo- printer with a USB interface. I don't dis-recommend Cups, but I've told my story and I'm sticking to it.
(Typos and general icky-ness of the email I apologize for, had to recreate it from a bounce message as I discovered a bit of misconfiguration on my recently moved email server...)
Every line came padded out with blanks to 80 columns. I took them out in the reply. Please don't accuse me of misquoting you. -- Keith
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi everybody, While I happen to use CUPS, I'd like to note that there is at least one other person who had an unhappy first experience. Eric Raymond documents his experience here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html Perhaps Chapter 3 of "The User's Guide to the Gimp-Print Top Quality Printer Drivers" (authored by yours truly) would be of help in configuring CUPS for a very basic installation. This document is available here: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/users-guide.pdf Admittedly, this doesn't cover the "login" window presented by the CUPS interface. After searching the web for some time, I can't find the documentation which describes how to setup accounts which give users permission to modify certain aspects of CUPS. It must be somewhere on the CUPS website. When I first configured CUPS, I couldn't for the life of me figure out whether to use http, IPP, or otherwise, in describing my printer, and there was no guidance to help determine the proper choice. The CUPS admin web page asking for "device URI" confounded me for quite some time. I found the examples on that web page unhelpful. Now that I have it working, I am happy with it, but admittedly it was rather frustrating to do the first time. In my opinion, the web interface should be so simple that I don't *need* to read the manual - at least for a very basic installation. Later, Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBOdmBHl0iXDssISsRAl76AJ9duHJww3GjGnUSCTy8wDRCNsWp0QCfV3rO jF3vlhhCqR5UXcHdrulvf7M= =oNes -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 11:04:22AM -0400, Andy Stewart wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Hi everybody,
While I happen to use CUPS, I'd like to note that there is at least one other person who had an unhappy first experience. Eric Raymond documents his experience here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
Even though I do have a couple of disagreements with his various points, it was a very good article and probably doubly helpful in that it allows people to admit that they are having trouble with something (If ESR can't get it to work, why would they be afraid to admit it? His followup article mentions this effect a bit.).
Perhaps Chapter 3 of "The User's Guide to the Gimp-Print Top Quality Printer Drivers" (authored by yours truly) would be of help in configuring CUPS for a very basic installation. This document is available here: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/users-guide.pdf
Admittedly, this doesn't cover the "login" window presented by the CUPS interface. After searching the web for some time, I can't find the documentation which describes how to setup accounts which give users permission to modify certain aspects of CUPS. It must be somewhere on the CUPS website.
The CUPS website FAQ had a reference that I stumbled across while looking something up for my response earlier. (http://cups.org/faq.php?16)
When I first configured CUPS, I couldn't for the life of me figure out whether to use http, IPP, or otherwise, in describing my printer, and there was no guidance to help determine the proper choice. The CUPS admin web page asking for "device URI" confounded me for quite some time. I found the examples on that web page unhelpful.
Now that I have it working, I am happy with it, but admittedly it was rather frustrating to do the first time. In my opinion, the web interface should be so simple that I don't *need* to read the manual - at least for a very basic installation.
Later,
Andy <SNIP>
I think this is where the CUPS web interface does begin to fall down. They have a lot of documentation elsewhere and you end up having to read a large portion of it to be able to configure things using the web interface. Frank
On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 02:50:53AM -0400, Keith Wright wrote: <SNIP>
I would have thought that 'Why do we eat?' would be a higher stage than 'Where do lunch?', but perhaps it is just a matter of taste. Which question seems more civilized may depend upon whether you are a French philosopher facing a plate full of jellied liver, or a film producer facing a starlet.
It was a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as explained recently by another poster and intended to mirror what I had seen as levity in the beginning of your post...
Though not yet civilized, the web interface may nevertheless be an advance from savagery to barbarism. I worry about security.
To each their own, however I think that equating a web interface with more insecurity than any other network reachable interface might be jumping the gun. <SNIP Adventures in CUPS-land>
Your web browser had its auto-magical lookup functionality turned on and went looking for what you specified when it couldn't connect to the address you specified.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with my browser (Firefox), it has never done anything at all like that before. If I had ever seen any hint of an auto-magical lookup functionality I would have shot it.
I might be mistaken and the functionality that I am referring to is in the DNS resolving layer. Same difference as the root issue was an inability to resolve a link as opposed to any clandestine communication (which wouldn't need to involve your browser anyway...).
Honestly, CUPS is not that hard to configure and use these days.
Well, I didn't mean to insult your baby, I was just telling my experience. I have Cups as installed by Redhat, if you could write or point me to a one page HOWTO send a file on this machine to the working printer on the other, that would be great. Maybe we could send it back to the Cups project. The documentation I have seen manages to be both voluminous and elliptical and lacks a short introduction to getting the damned thing working in the simplest case.
I'm not sure why you think CUPS is my baby, I have no affliation nor even heavy use of it. Heck, I've only used it reasonably often in two environments: One work environment on a linux desktop in a Windows only shop (much fun with samba, non/badly- documented copiers that pretend to be printers, and so on...) and a home environment where a mixed set of OSes talked to two printers (laser/inkjet) on different machines. Both were in the last couple of years. I was reporting on *my* experience and mentioned along the way what I thought might have been going on in your experience. Your browser going to odd places (assuming the link appeared to be valid) does not point the finger at CUPS (at least at first glance), but at what your browser was doing. For example, the question about the login box is answered in the FAQ section on the CUPS website under "What Password Do I Need to Use in the Web Interface?".)
There was a period of history where it was pretty difficult to set up correctly but it has been pretty solid for the last couple of years.
Maybe you have learned to do a difficult thing so well that you forgot why it was difficult.
Nah, I skipped the difficult years. I came in when it was easy to do.
And, even in the difficult years, it offered a level of functionality not readily available with the rest of tools in play at the time.
But if you don't want functionality, just want to send a file upstairs in fewer steps than ftp and telnet...
Out of curiousiy, what did you end up using? <SNIP>
And I'd recommend it to the original poster.
Near as I can remember the original poster asked about a photo- printer with a USB interface. I don't dis-recommend Cups, but I've told my story and I'm sticking to it.
In this case, the poster can draw on the combined experiences of WLUG and we just might be able to get them through the (dark and scary)/(reasonably lit and pleasant) passage to printing bliss or a reasonably close facsimile thereof.
(Typos and general icky-ness of the email I apologize for, had to recreate it from a bounce message as I discovered a bit of misconfiguration on my recently moved email server...)
Every line came padded out with blanks to 80 columns. I took them out in the reply. Please don't accuse me of misquoting you.
-- Keith
What an odd request... But okay... Frank
participants (5)
-
Andy Stewart -
Chuck Haines -
Frank -
Keith Wright -
Son Nguyen