[vox-tech] Touble with Printer Set-up (long)

[Rod Roark]

I recently installed Gentoo Linux (http://www.gentoo.org/)
on my home desktop -- really cool!  It comes with cups by
default.

I had no previous experience with it, but it turns out all 
you have to do is run the daemon (cupsd or something 
similar) and then point your web browser to 
http://localhost:631/, and it's smooth sailing from there.

-- Rod
   http://www.sunsetsystems.com/

On Friday 12 April 2002 07:41, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> jim,
>
> i have to admit, i don't know as much about printers as i ought to. 
> all the ones i've set up just seem "to work" as long as the parallel
> port
>
> "works".   a couple of comments:
> > 9.)  At this point they claim you can just use printtool or
> > printconf, or use the CUPS web-based interface to finish things
> > up.  Neither printtool nor printconf are recognized commands now
> > on my machine, so that won't work.  I suspect it's because of step
> > 3.) above.
>
> absolutely.  you rpm -e'd them.  that removes the rpm from your
> system. you're not exactly a newbie; sometimes a ridiculously hard
> problem can make us feel like newbies tho.
>
>
> here's the deal.  i can't help you.  i don't use cups, i don't like
> cups, i never learned cups.  i find it hard to believe that cups
> would install a "driver" to your system.  at least anything that *i*
> would call a driver.   you should still be able to do some basic
> diagnostic stuff with your system.
>
> 1. is your parallel port working?
>
> 1a.  fresh installs of redhat and mandrake have everything but the
> kitchen sink insmoded as a driver.   do dmesg | less and look for
> anything that says "parport".  look to see if the message is more
> along the lines of "parport.o loaded hunky dory" or "parport.o blew
> chunks".
>
>
> 1b. do lsmod.  look for something that says parport.
>
> 1c. here's the final test.   create a small text file that says
> "hello world" and name it testfile.
>
> cat testfile > /dev/lp0
>
> the light on your printer *should* blink at the very least.  in the
> best case, your printer will print "hello world".   if this test
> works, then your parallel port is DEFINITELY ok.
>
>
>
> at this point, we know whether the parallel port is healthy or not. 
> the next part is to determine whether spooling is working.
>
>
> let me know how this part fares and we'll move to the next part.
>
>
> someone please put me out of my misery and do a talk about cups and
> lprng at lugod!!
>
> pete