Printer Hell with Suse

[TioDuke]

Originally Posted by oldcpu

OK, I confess I may have been a bit harsh on Ubuntu. The implementation speed of their upstream fixes (which equates to molasses in January in Quebec Canada) is a pet peeve of mine.

No, you have not. If anything, you stated the sad truth: they suck big time in relating with upstream. Take for instance what happened with the new notify thingy they implemented and the reaction from the people on the kde-devel mailing list. Not pretty!

[weighty_foe]

Kyocera all the way. P-p-p-purrfect for Penguins

[growbag]

I had the same problems with my HP wireless printer, I found that you can get updated drivers from the packman repo (well, for the HP anyway!).

That is one of the drawbacks to the openSUSE policy of sticking to released versions of software, same as kernel drivers.

Things like printers come and go rapidly, maybe it would be a good suggestion to somehow allow any printer related software/drivers to be allowed to use newer versions as soon as they become available through updates?

You might want to try that, or updating the kernel, or even trying the 11.2 release candidate, see if that works.

[BrownieCat]

Originally Posted by michaelrobertsaz

After all the improvements and progress they've made, why can't they make it possible to use a printer.

I bought a new Canon MP620 and made it a network printer. On Ubuntu, I told it to look for a new printer,and it found it, installed the driver and it was ready to go in less than a minute.
With Suse, I've lost 8 hours trying to figure it out and still can't even find the print on the network, let alone address it.

Is it so hard for Suse and so easy for Ubuntu. You'd think they'd talk with Ubuntu for a hint. I've just about had it. With ubuntu, all videos play, no problem. With Suse you're stuck with Kaffine and it plays nothing.

In most other ways I like Suse, but those two problems are enough to format the Suse drive and give the space back a distro that works.

Sheesh!

Welcome to openSUSE forums.
What you are complaining of is quite common. Several users say Ubuntu 'just works' while openSUSE is riddled with problems.
Don't blame openSUSE for it. You can install non-free drivers and things for it if you want. They're just not included by default. If you like Ubuntu, (which is liberal in including non-free software) you can use it. But before just turning to Ubuntu after trying to get your printer to work in openSUSE, you could have posted a help question, you know. No use trying to get your printer to work, then end up frustrated and turn to Ubuntu before even posting a help question. This is mainly a support forum: not for people to post criticisms of openSUSE before even asking help.
But if you are happy with Ubuntu, well then, good for you. You're still a Linux user, and that's mainly what matters.

[Rikishi42]

On 2009-10-26, Knurpht <Knurpht@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> smpoole7;2055838 Wrote:
>> Oldcpu,
>>
>> If you think Canon is bad, try a Lexmark sometime.
>
>
> You've never had to work with a Canon copier and it's drivers. Lexmark
> is heaven compared to that. 8 Hours? Over a year, and every time we
> think we've got it fixed with latest drivers, new problems arise. If I
> followed my instincts, Hubble would see a lot of those Canon's orbitting
> earth, or preferrably Pluto.

I'll up you one: Xerox.

So bad it won't even work with it's own drivers... under Windows.

Just try to beat that.


(got our printshop operation, using an HP driver...)


--
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.

[conram]

Originally Posted by smpoole7

Oldcpu,

If you think Canon is bad, try a Lexmark sometime.

Ha,ha,ha. Can't help to dig my old problem with printer.
See this link.http://forums.opensuse.org/archives/...y-printer.html

That was 5 years ago.
Anyway, I've been polite in posting my problem in the forum. I did not barged on the door and came yelling even dough I was pulling my hair already because of the issue. Nice to be saint sometimes.

[hendersj]

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:45:03 +0000, Rikishi42 wrote:

> I'll up you one: Xerox.
>
> So bad it won't even work with it's own drivers... under Windows.

One of the things that drives me nuts (since we're on Xerox at the
moment) is that the Xerox driver for the 5632 - while they work great -
do one thing that's kinda ugly.

Open document in OpenOffice, print multiple copies (say 5), double-sided,
with the finisher as the output. Tell it to staple each copy.

You get one staple through all copies (so all 5 copies stapled together).

I need to report that as a bug, and I keep forgetting - since I only run
into it once every two weeks before a meeting I run, by the end of the
meeting, I've forgotten about the problem - until the next time.

But in general, I have good luck with every printer I've tried - HP
deskjet, HP laserjets, Xerox printers (excepting the issue above),
Lexmark - never really had a problem getting them set up or getting them
to print properly.

Jim
--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

[GofBorg]

> But in general, I have good luck with every printer I've tried - HP
> deskjet, HP laserjets, Xerox printers (excepting the issue above),
> Lexmark - never really had a problem getting them set up or getting them
> to print properly.

I have to agree and I have a mix of HP/Xerox and Lexmark in the office.
Each one has interesting things you have to do to get them going but on the
whole they all work under Linux or my VM Windows box. I do IP printing, so
I don't know what sort of issues you might run into if they were USB or
Parallel connected.

[Chochoms]

I installed SUSe today and I am happy to report that most things works. You guys can feel good about yourselves because I loaded Mandriva first and absolutely nothing worked! But even though SUSE found my printer and it seemed to istall properly in YAST it would not print. The error said there was a problem with foomatic or whatever it is called.

I tried the http://localhost:631/ find printer trick posted in this thread and it said it can't find a printer even though my printer is listed in YAST.

No doubt that discrepency is the root of the problem but I have no clue how to fix it. I am a Windows expert and have used every operating system known at one time or another. So I am a novice only to LINUX, and can understand technical jargon.

By the way, the printer is a parallel HP Deskjet 722C, going through an ATEN switchbox. Its not the printer because absolutely every other distribution I have tried except for Mandriva finds the printer and installs it perfectly.

There is nothing unique about my computer. I purposely built it out of LINUX-friendly parts at least one generation old. There is no Windows on it. It is all LINUX.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

SUSE seems stable and if this is the only problem it has, I would love to keep it. Like the other guy said, Ubuntu and Gloria mint loaded the printer automatically and it worked perfectly but those distributions were unstable so I couldn't keep them.

[Chochoms]

I tried installing the printer manually in the browser using the localhost:631 thing. Everything went well until I tried to run a test page. I got this error:

HP722C "/usr/lib64/cups/filter/foomatic-rip failed"

Well since I don't know what a "foomatic" is or how it works I am dead in the water. So I googled around and found out there is a error log:

1:31:49 -0600] Saving printers.conf...
I [30/Oct/2009:21:31:49 -0600] Printer "HP722C" modified by "root".
I [30/Oct/2009:21:31:52 -0600] Started "/usr/lib64/cups/cgi-bin/jobs.cgi" (pid=5146)
I [30/Oct/2009:21:31:56 -0600] Started "/usr/lib64/cups/cgi-bin/jobs.cgi" (pid=5147)
I [30/Oct/2009:21:31:56 -0600] [Job 2] Restarted by "root".
I [30/Oct/2009:21:32:01 -0600] Started "/usr/lib64/cups/cgi-bin/jobs.cgi" (pid=5148)
I [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] [Job 2] Started filter /usr/lib64/cups/filter/pstops (PID 5149)
I [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] [Job 2] Started filter /usr/lib64/cups/filter/foomatic-rip (PID 5150)
I [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] [Job 2] Started backend /usr/lib64/cups/backend/parallel (PID 5151)
E [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] PID 5150 (/usr/lib64/cups/filter/foomatic-rip) stopped with status 1!
I [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
E [30/Oct/2009:21:32:02 -0600] [Job 2] Job stopped due to filter errors.


Can anybody figure out what my problem is? How do I set the loglevel to "debug?"