Aaaarrrggghhh CUPS

[Greg]

Just venting a little, move on if that's not your thing. Or you don't know what CUPS is.

I bought my first printer in the very late 90's. Samsung monochrome laser, when they were first starting to break into the US print market so they were pricing aggressively. Spent $400 on it and it was a *steal*. It has served me well for over a decade, and it's still only on its second toner cartridge. Unfortunately it's getting tired, it's had lots of little issues, between the paper jams and the toner leaks, etc.

So, with discounts everywhere I bought a new printer. Samsung monochrome laser, network-capable, better than the old one in every measureable way. $80. Electronics is one of the closer things we still have to a free market, and look what happens. Maybe people might figure something from that.... Anyway.

Pull old printer, put new printer in its place. Do cabling surgery (I will NEVER own a device that uses a parallel cable again!), put the new printer on the network, etc. Test page prints, I can get to the printer's own web management interface. OK. But getting my machines (one Debian server, one Ubuntu desktop) to PRINT to it? Not so much. Because I have to deal with CUPS.

Supposedly CUPS is simple, intuitive and you can do everything through a handy-dandy web interface. No.

It WOULD not work. The steps that all the instructions say you should do, and they should "just work"... my ass. Between not being able to find the printer, to "invalid uri" when trying to set it up myself (I know where it is, CUPS, let me just tell you), etc etc.

So being a sysadmin, I start mucking around. Supposedly CUPS is snmp-capable, but I initially could see no sign of it. So I go looking. And find some directories, /usr/lib/cups/backend and /usr/lib/cups/backend-available. The tools I need are in 'backend-available', not 'backend'. I can run then from 'backend-available' but CUPS won't use them. So when I hard link everything in 'backend-available' to 'backend', EVERYTHING suddenly "just works".

So how the FUCK did CUPS decide which backend support tools would be in the 'they're supposedly available but I'm going to disavow all knowledge of them and not use them' directory, and which would be in the 'things I reluctantly admit to knowing about' directory? And how do you tell CUPS to switch a given tool from one to the other? Certainly not through the web interface. If I hadn't done my own digging, and thought to move (or link) the programs I needed from one directory to the other, I'd still be beating my head against a wall.

[HTRN]

See, this is why they'll pry my Laserjet from my cold dead hands.

[Greg]

The new printer is fine, I'm very happy with it.

But the software on Linux to set up printers... not so much. Works fine once you get it set up, but... It's an example of the general problem of 'what the hell do you do when your supposedly intuitive GUI software runs into a use case that there isn't a button/switch for in the GUI'? You're boned.

[Rich]

Repost this to the Linux folks dealing with CUPS so they can decide if they want to deal with the issue.

Or just have a good laugh at your expense.

[PawPaw]

And here all this time I thought CUP was Copper Units of Pressure, unlike PSI, which is something different entirely.

[Highspeed]

And here all this time I thought CUP was Copper Units of Pressure, unlike PSI, which is something different entirely.

Me too, I thought Greg was reloading

[Greg]

And here all this time I thought CUP was Copper Units of Pressure, unlike PSI, which is something different entirely.

Me too, I thought Greg was reloading

Don't I wish. Seriously, I'd much rather be reloading. Managing printers has always been one of the most irritating parts of system administration.

But if anyone is interested, this seems to be more a problem with the way distributions package CUPS (Common Unix Printing System, IIRC) than with CUPS proper, what with stashing away backends that aren't 'needed'. Doesn't seem to be new, either. I found some discussion from 2007 on that very issue.

On the plus side, I now have an Android app that lets me send print jobs directly to the printer from my phone and tablet.

[Windy Wilson]

See, this is why they'll pry my Laserjet from my cold dead hands.

Laserjet 5, the iron horse.

[HTRN]

Yeah, a Laserjet 5si is like 200 bucks refurbed, and was originally intended for severe duty in office environments(one of the more interesting accessories was a 2000 sheet feeder). The downside is they didn't come with a network card, so you have to track one down for it.

[MarkD]

Back when I was an undergraduate I had a buddy who was in the graduate program. He worked for Bell Labs, later AT&T Communications as a hardware evaluator. Basically, they'd hand him a piece of hardware and say "See how much you can make it do before it breaks". He loved the early HP laser printers, he put ten times the amount of paper thru it than it was designed for, finally managed to make it break.

Yeah, he had a great job.