You know how it is, you get some source code and you fiddle around with it and try and make it build, install, work.. and then after wasting some time you eventually get around to consulting the README file. Well, some README files are well worth reading, here is the contents of the gnome-cups-manager README file... very amusing.
gnome-cups-manager
------------------
Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with.
One day, the wind passed by the printer's cottage. "Whoosh," said the wind. The printer became excited. Maybe the wind would be his friend!
"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked.
"Whoosh," said the wind.
"What does that mean?" asked the printer.
"Whoosh," said the wind, and with that it was gone.
The printer was confused. He spent the rest of the day thinking and jamming paper (for that is what little printers do when they are confused).
The next day a storm came. The rain came pouring down, darkening the morning sky and destroying the printer's garden. The little printer was upset. "Why are you being so mean to me?" he asked.
"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain.
"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked shyly.
"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain, and then it left and the sun came out.
The printer was sad. He spent the rest of the day inside, sobbing and blinking lights cryptically (for that is what little printers do when they are sad).
Then one day, a little girl stumbled into the printer's clearing in the woods. The printer looked at this curious sight. He didn't know what to think.
The little girl looked up at him. "Will you be my friend?" she asked.
"Yes," said the printer.
"What is your name?" asked the little girl.
"HP 4100TN", replied the printer.
"My name is gnome-cups-manager" said the little girl.
The printer was happy. He spent the rest of the day playing games and printing documents, for that is what little printers do when they are happy.
Note that this text is covered by the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, Version 2, June 1991.
Showing posts with label printers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label printers. Show all posts
Friday, 16 October 2009
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Oh Brother!
Last month I blogged about my Brother 2170W laser printer. So far it has been a totally reliable monochrome laser printer. We just keep on feeding A4 paper and it keeps on printing. It works really well with Ubuntu Intrepid, Jaunty and Karmic Alpha 3.
However, it has one downside. It's really slow at handling fairly large graphic images. Today we wanted to print out the maps of Ashdown forest from a PDF (~6MB of data) and after 20 minutes we gave up waiting and killed the print job. Initially the data zipped over to the printer, then it slowed down to ~30K/s and chugged on and on and on... Zzzzzz.
My quick workaround was open the PDF in GIMP and print it out as a smaller 1.5MB JPG and it printed out within 3 minutes. Even so, that's fairly slow. I suspect the 32MB buffer is a teeny bit too small for intensive graphic prints.
However, I shouldn't gripe too much. I bought this printer as a general text printer and for this it does very well. I had read in reviews that it was slow on intensive graphic printing, and this is indeed true, but for 95% of my printing it's fast enough for my requirements.
However, it has one downside. It's really slow at handling fairly large graphic images. Today we wanted to print out the maps of Ashdown forest from a PDF (~6MB of data) and after 20 minutes we gave up waiting and killed the print job. Initially the data zipped over to the printer, then it slowed down to ~30K/s and chugged on and on and on... Zzzzzz.
My quick workaround was open the PDF in GIMP and print it out as a smaller 1.5MB JPG and it printed out within 3 minutes. Even so, that's fairly slow. I suspect the 32MB buffer is a teeny bit too small for intensive graphic prints.
However, I shouldn't gripe too much. I bought this printer as a general text printer and for this it does very well. I had read in reviews that it was slow on intensive graphic printing, and this is indeed true, but for 95% of my printing it's fast enough for my requirements.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Brother 2170W Laser Printer
A little while ago my old cranky HP InkJet printer finally died and it was time to look for a new printer. This time around I was looking for a simple black and white laser printer as these work out cheaper per page than colour Inkjets. Lack of colour is a bonus in my boo
ks as it stops the kids wanting to print out lots of pictures from Tuxpaint and Gcompris :-)
As a luxury option I wanted to see if I could find a reasonably priced laser printer that also had Wifi connectivity to give me a little more flexibility in where I put the box.
After some searching around I ended up buying a Brother HL2170W, which can print upto 22 pages a minute and has very good driver support in Ubuntu. My Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty laptops found the printer on the network with no effort at all, can configuring it was a no-brainer. Once configured, one can easily check the printer's status and do further configuration using the printers web based admin tool, as shown below:
The downside was that when it associates with my ancient and flakey 3COM Office Connect router/Access Point the router occasionally crashes when using WPA2 PSK(!). I don't believe this is a fault with the Brother's Wifi at all. Until I'm brave enough to reflash my router with a firmware upgrade or buy a better one I won't be using my wireless laser printer wirelessly :-(
The Brother so far is reliable and just works as it should, with zero hassles. The only downside is that the printer has 32MB of memory, so it's a little slow at printing very large graphics.
The full specifications of the printer can be found here.
UPDATE: 24th Aug 2009. I've re-flashed my Wireless Access Point and I still cannot get the printer to associate. When I have time I will experimenting with another bit of wireless kit and see what's going on. Hmph.
ks as it stops the kids wanting to print out lots of pictures from Tuxpaint and Gcompris :-)As a luxury option I wanted to see if I could find a reasonably priced laser printer that also had Wifi connectivity to give me a little more flexibility in where I put the box.
After some searching around I ended up buying a Brother HL2170W, which can print upto 22 pages a minute and has very good driver support in Ubuntu. My Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty laptops found the printer on the network with no effort at all, can configuring it was a no-brainer. Once configured, one can easily check the printer's status and do further configuration using the printers web based admin tool, as shown below:
The downside was that when it associates with my ancient and flakey 3COM Office Connect router/Access Point the router occasionally crashes when using WPA2 PSK(!). I don't believe this is a fault with the Brother's Wifi at all. Until I'm brave enough to reflash my router with a firmware upgrade or buy a better one I won't be using my wireless laser printer wirelessly :-(The Brother so far is reliable and just works as it should, with zero hassles. The only downside is that the printer has 32MB of memory, so it's a little slow at printing very large graphics.
The full specifications of the printer can be found here.
UPDATE: 24th Aug 2009. I've re-flashed my Wireless Access Point and I still cannot get the printer to associate. When I have time I will experimenting with another bit of wireless kit and see what's going on. Hmph.
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