New user's observation

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exploder
Level 15
Level 15
Posts: 5623
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:50 am
Location: HartfordCity, Indiana USA

Re: New user's observation

Post by exploder »

It's got to be something simple because you did have it working. Was there anything in the link I posted that might point to the problem?
ULTRA001

Re: New user's observation

Post by ULTRA001 »

We want to, or have to, use certain hardware, such as high end printers, GPUs or sound cards. And that may mean, inevitably, you may have to make the choice between that hardware, and using Linux.

So, right now, I would like to make some nice prints and enter them to a local exhibition, and Linux could potentially prevent me from doing that. :-(

What I mean by that is it IS preventing me from doing that.

Hence my stupid caricature of Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose.

Yes, I can send the files to a local print house and pay, but why? I have an excellent printer at home! This is why I am so frustrated, that, and by the blind, pointless nature of the working perfectly/not working at all way this came about and by how robust this problem is to all attempts at resolving it!


Andy
ULTRA001

Re: New user's observation

Post by ULTRA001 »

Hi exploder,
Yes, of course, eventually the problem can be solved, even if I have to resort to a dual boot or something :-(

I'm at work now, just eating my lunch and checking the forum. I'll have a proper look later and see what I can find. It may have to be tomorrow, I've been summoned to a meeting...groan ;-D

Andy
deleted

Re: New user's observation

Post by deleted »

Be careful of dual boot (make sure you have backups)
A Win7 update overwrote my MBR which effectively toasted my Linux partition.
-Zumwalt
ULTRA001

Re: New user's observation

Post by ULTRA001 »

Hi Zumwalt,
the dual boot solution shall be the last resort, and I would buy another drive to put Windows on in that machine.

On the old laptop I have Vista on one drive and Mint on a new SSD. I could boot Vista and use the printer with that.

Vista is indeed crap, but it controls the CPU fan, which Linux doesn't properly, and I kept it for times when I need Windows, like to update the satnav etc.

A
joseph8

Re: New user's observation

Post by joseph8 »

Hmmm... your CUPS server is dead...

Do you see a line like this:

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tcp6       0      0 ::1:631                 :::*                    LISTEN 
when you enter this:

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netstat -lnt
on the command line?

try this:

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sudo service cups start
to start the service. If it wont start or throws an error it could be due to a configuration problem with CUPS, not sure why it would work and then break later.
See if there is anything telling by typing this command:

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tail /var/log/cups/error_log
mintjay

Re: New user's observation

Post by mintjay »

ULTRA001 wrote:Hi All,
My kids prefer Linux because, when I installed it on the laptop a few months ago it was like it gained an extra GHz on it's CPU clock.

The wife is pretty much oblivious to any differences...

I wanted that printer, a Canon, for a reason. I want it because it has a photo print and scan quality which isn't available in another printer at that price. I have a soft spot for HP, the old HP anyway, because I always liked their test equipment, and the history the company is interesting, I have a friend works in the R&D dept. there...and I used to run a sideline in repairing and reconditioning their computers (9000 series etc.), but, their printers? Not for me.

Can I say that the Canon drivers were easy to find and download. What caused me an issue at the first install stage was the fact that, for an unknown reason, Mint would not accept my password to run the driver.

I later found that I could use ./ and the drivers installed and everything worked. Even printing photos from GIMP. Everything was working on Sunday too.

Monday, no printing and 'Firefox can't connect to the server at localhost:631'

And that is where I'm stuck.

Andy
I have a canon pixma mg2120 printer (mint 17.1 cinnamon on t430s laptop). I installed xsane and i could print and scan without any issues. Try this from the repository and see if this works.
Thanks,
Jay
ULTRA001

Re: New user's observation

Post by ULTRA001 »

Hi Guys,
thanks, I solved the printer issue, and marked it solved in the hardware forum. Good quality prints from GIMP are now mine!

Scanning isn't so good, the scangear driver for the MG7550 is very primitive, but I can't look for alternatives at the moment, I'm too busy at work. It's not a big deal though. The scans are good enough, it's the JPEG compression which is crappy.

I have Mint installed on my work machine too, that one's a i7 job...nice...two monitors working fine, too. My next task is to try to get my electronics suite working in WINE or somesuch, if not, it means booting into WIndows again. However, the vendor says it will work with a bit of help from them. I guess I can fit a bigger cooler and OC the CPU to make up the difference ;-)

My latest discovery is Orpie, a RPN calculator in the terminal...yessss! Call me a nerd, but it's so awesome!

Andy
exploder
Level 15
Level 15
Posts: 5623
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:50 am
Location: HartfordCity, Indiana USA

Re: New user's observation

Post by exploder »

ULTRA001, sounds like things are working out better for you now! It's always nice when a vendor is willing to help you out too. Everything gets easier in time and you will find a lot more software you like in the future when you have the time to explore a little. Really glad to hear you are doing well! :D
GermanyChris

Re: New user's observation

Post by GermanyChris »

ULTRA001 wrote: what is CUPS?
Common Unix Printing System

We have it now thanks to Apple. Before CUPS printing was a bear and I never did get any scanning to work.
hagey

Re: New user's observation

Post by hagey »

Getting back to the original post, i myself am very new to Linux Mint, in fact Linux anything to be honest. I almost threw away an old laptop i have because it hasn't been used for years, was soo slow and was 'running' Windows XP but I realised that it might be useful to us if I could get it to work properly again.

I came across an article about an alternative to the dying XP and discovered LM so decided to give it a shot and install it on the laptop. I initially did this as a dual boot without any problems at all and even skipped down to my local computer shop to ask for some RAM. I was extremely lucky after some scratching around that my good fellow found, and blew the dust off, a 1gb card that actually fit and worked. Now my laptop was positively zinging along just nicely when i decided to delete the xp partition and then all hell broke loose and i couldn't boot the machine at all. With some frustration over a couple of days but with the help of Derek_S on this forum, who had the patience of a saint, I eventually got things going again, even though it did require a fresh install.

My point is this; I have limited computer knowledge, even though i remember doing dos at school back in the 80's and have owned several computers since Windows 95, because Microsoft and Apple have done a great job of making these things accessible to us and easy to use for all sorts of things, in fact too easy. It was only in the discovery of LM and my brief experience so far that I actually really learned something and it rekindled my interest in computing. I am now very much intrigued and want to learn more about mint and using the terminal because i think it's cool and kinda geeky (from my perspective) and because it's made me stop and question how computers actually work again.

I'm having fun. It might not be a bad thing for more people to stop and think things through rather than just expecting everything to happen quickly and in a certain way - I include myself. You're obviously an avid problem solver Andy, so maybe you will get some satisfaction out of the experience as I have.
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