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On Fri, 30 Sep 2011, tom wrote:
On 29/09/11 17:57, Simon Robert -Cottage wrote:Just to ask, what is the problem with hplip?
Its not open-source is one! HP are amazingly expensive and you will almost certainly find that using HP you will have 'empty' cartridges that contain a LOT of ink.
hplip is supplied as source code, although I didn't check the licensing. It's supplied with Debian, although I didn't check to see if it's in the standard or non-free sections.
However, the issue of open source or not isn't relevant for me for this instance right now - the issue is one of support and usability, and I have to actually say that I'm impressed with hplip and it's supporting tools to drive their printers under Linux and they ought to be congratulated for actually making the effort. Under Linux I can do everything that the Win drivers can/could do - align print heads, run cleaning cycles and so on. I'm pretty sure it's CUPS that the culprit here, not hplip, or possibly the Gnome front-ends to CUPS.
The scanner part is fully supported by sane too. Even over Ethernet.Of-course running the printer over Ethernet sort of negates the use of the printers own multi-function card reader, but we can live without that...
It wont be the distro not detecting the printer - these are simple protocols and even my old printer from 1994 is recognised by most.
You may not have read all my posts - the printer was correctly recognised, but it wouldn't print properly until I manually removed all relevant printing packages and di a re-install of them.
Although this mornings "the printer isn't working again" problem was caused by a Ethernet cable not being plugged in... Plugged the cable in and it magically started working without having to fiddle with re-enabling it, etc. or anything.
What does irritate me is that if this were a "man on the X38 omnibus" scenario, then they'd probably have been stuck and put-off Linux for life unless they had a local geek to sort it out for them. I set out to keep my wifes PC as near as possible to 100% Debian "standard" as I could, without doing any of my usual tweaks to it. I did have to manually install the non-free codecs and dvd drivers, but that's pretty well documented - to the extent that I think it would be no harder than installing a new driver under XP for example. ie. something my wife could have done using google - assuming she knew what to google for in the first place! (Which is half the battle IME)
Linux on the desktop for the non-geek user? Yes, it's possible - if you have a friendly geek to keep it fed and watered...
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq