Printing in Ubuntu

I had my linux laptop printing to my Brother MFC-210c printer, but since i've changed laptops and now finally got a dedicated linux machine, I wanted to setup a print server. First things first, get the printer to work with CUPS.

Followed instructions from this website:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=590793

Also very useful was Brother's linux support site (very happy that they're doing this! my next printer is probably going to be Brother too when this one fails!)

*http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/index.html

*http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/instruction_prn1a.html#dpkg1

machine arch: intel p4 HT running ubuntu 8.10

(repeated below for local record)

* install tcsh:

sudo apt-get install tcsh

* download lpd and cups drivers (.dep packages)
from here and here

cd ~/temp/brother-driver
sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd
sudo dpkg -i --force-all --force-architecture mfc210clpr-1.0.2-1.i386.deb 
sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model
sudo dpkg -i --force-all cupswrapperMFC210C-1.0.2-3.i386.deb 

NB: replace above .deb package with appropriate ones if things change later.

check if the drivers were correctly installed:

 dpkg -l | grep --ignore-case brother

The above should generate an output that looks like below:

ii  brscan2                                    0.2.4                                                      Brother Scanner Driver
ii  cupswrappermfc210c                         1.0.2-3                                                    Brother MFC210C CUPS wrapper driver
ii  mfc210clpr                                 1.0.2-1                                                    Brother lpr Inkjet Printer Definitions

At this point, i was ready to print a test page. However going to System | Administration | Printing showed me two Brother MFC-210C printers. One was listed as a "text only printer", which I simply deleted (because it wasn't working to begin with). Check on the remaining icon that it is listed as "Brother MFC-210C CUPS v1.1" (right click, select Properties).

Print a test page!

Next step, getting the printer shared so that windows machines can print to it.

This needs samba installed and working, which i'm assuming is already done. if not, there's another page on this blog that should help you get up and running.

The following howto page is helpful

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Debian-and-Windows-Shared-Printing/sharing_with_windows.html

However, these throw open the system to all, so i decided to make some modifications

cd /etc/samba
sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf.master

add / modify the following section

[printers]
   comment = All Printers
   browseable = yes
   path = /var/spool/samba
   printable = yes
   guest ok = no
   read only = yes
   create mask = 0700
   use client driver = yes

restart samba

sudo testparm -s smb.conf.master > smb.conf
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Modify cups files

Windows printer drivers format their output for the printer before sending it across the network. You must configure CUPS to accept the pre-formatted output by uncommenting the following line from

sudo vi /etc/cups/mime.convs

application/octet-stream   application/vnd.cups-raw   0   -

Also uncomment the following line from

sudo /etc/cups/mime.types

application/octet-stream

Now CUPS must be told to allow connections from other machines on the network. Add these lines to /etc/cups/cupsd.conf:

 AuthType None
 Order Deny,Allow
 Deny From All
 Allow From 192.168.1.*/255.255.255.0

This allows only machines on the local network to access the cups driver.

restart the cups daemon

sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

Ubuntu gripes

I have had a long running argument with a few friends about the utility of Ubuntu. I started out as a Linux believer / fanatic when in school. I drank hook line and sinker the "academia" spiel about Linux being a better and more productive operating system than WinBlows to end. Till I met a few high respected practising academics and professionals who championed otherwise. Thus I decided to be a good engineer and become OS agnostic. I chose to create, in my head, a wet-ware database about what was good about each OS and use it for that purpose.

But the number of exceptions and uses has become far too much for me to bear and I must purge my knowledge in the pensieve of this blog, so that at a later date, I might refer to it without having to relearn history or reinvent the wheel. Hopefully others can use my experiences as well and make better informed and wiser decisions.

Things I do like about Ubuntu Linux:
1.

Things I don't like about Ubuntu LinSux:

1. Laptops aren't supported very well (I understand there is proprietary support required, but that doesn't mean I have to like shoddy things. I would love it if all hardware manufacturers got their act together and supported Linux all out, but then where's the monetary incentive?)

2. It seems to have an increase load of crapware or malformed experimentware. Take tracerd for instance: it is supposed to be a indexer tool to enhance searches. Nice and fine, except that it sucks. No I mean literally. It sucks all available memory and processing power away from the machine even while it is in use. At least windows products are mature enough to not do that. They may have a whole bunch of other things wrong with them (mem leaks for one, zombied processes etc.) but they tend to not cripple you while you work. Not so trackerd. It happily sucks the life of your hard drive and processing cycles from your tasks while it runs.

3. Hibernation doesn't work right. Now I'd like to accept the Ubuntu apologizer's claim "it's because of the broken M$ ACPI model", but I just can't get myself to do that. Each time the machine resumes from hibernation in windows, stuff comes back normal: the screen works, the sound works yada yada. Not so with Gutsy. NetworkManager is not going to work, in addition to sucking all processing cycles (something that isn't supposed to happen in Linux because of its excellent scheduler and extreme advantages against a micro-kernel architecture). Good luck if sound works right. Oh yeah and keep 'em fingers crossed or else the display might not come on right (though mostly, it does). Somehow ACPI under windows seems to be free from these afflictions.

4. sound card doesn't work right. In Winblows Vastage, when you connect a headphone jack, the audio in the speakers is killed (as expected). In Gutsy Linsux, connected a headphone gives you audio in two places! two for the price of one! so if you wanted to hear some music without disturbing those around you, fat chance! Also audio has never dealt very well with hibernation (see 3 above). Btw, FYI, I am currently using Gutsy as I type and I tend to do a lot of my non-work development in Gutsy.

5. Screen brightness goes to eye burning max each time the system resumes from suspend / hibernation. Have to go to Preferences | Power Management each time and jiggle screen brightness around to reduce it to comfortable levels.

6. (07/07/2008) More hibernation quirks: system resumes fine from suspend when idle, but then immediately hibernates. More here and here

7. Can't join the same wireless network after suspend / hibernate. There is an open bug on this.

8. Using Photoshop under Wine initially had the issue that the clone tool (Alt + Click) wouldn't work because it would always try to move the window. Figured out that this was because of Ubuntu's window manager (Gnome). Easily remedied in this case by changing System | Preferences | Windows | used Super "windows logo" plus click for move.



Things I do like about Windows Vista:

Things I don't like about Winblows WasteYa: