Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay "The Luxury of Ignorance" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html), and things really haven't gotten any better. Here's an update since I last posted about six weeks ago. I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal memory went bad. These things happen. So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w which is no end of trouble; I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports "Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing udev rules to rebooting, makes it available. So I bought another printer, a Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts. I won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and tried, and tried. More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work, that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently humble set of requirements. You'd think. If anyone on this list can recommend such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I would be almost shamefully greatful. Nearly as good would be cautions about what to avoid. Thanks. -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
On 2020-05-31 6:23 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote: Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay "The Luxury of Ignorance" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html), and things really haven't gotten any better. Here's an update since I last posted about six weeks ago. I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal memory went bad. These things happen. So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w which is no end of trouble; Ah yes, the "modem testing problem" redux. I've had good luck with an HP "Color LaserJetPro MFP M177fw", but I don't enjoy a system where you buy a printer and only then find out if you have to return it or not. --dave I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports "Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing udev rules to rebooting, makes it available. So I bought another printer, a Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts. I won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and tried, and tried. More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work, that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently humble set of requirements. You'd think. If anyone on this list can recommend such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I would be almost shamefully greatful. Nearly as good would be cautions about what to avoid. Thanks. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org<mailto:talk@gtalug.org> Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest dave.collier-brown@indexexchange.com<mailto:dave.collier-brown@indexexchange.com> | -- Mark Twain CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER : This telecommunication, including any and all attachments, contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited and is not a waiver of confidentiality. If you have received this telecommunication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return electronic mail and delete the message from your inbox and deleted items folders. This telecommunication does not constitute an express or implied agreement to conduct transactions by electronic means, nor does it constitute a contract offer, a contract amendment or an acceptance of a contract offer. Contract terms contained in this telecommunication are subject to legal review and the completion of formal documentation and are not binding until same is confirmed in writing and has been signed by an authorized signatory.
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 07:12:33PM -0400, Dave Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
Ah yes, the "modem testing problem" redux.
Exactly!
I've had good luck with an HP "Color LaserJetPro MFP M177fw", but I don't enjoy a system where you buy a printer and only then find out if you have to return it or not.
Agreed. It's a scandal that something as basic as printing should still be such a haphazard mess. -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
On 2020-05-31 6:23 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:
I'm considering buying something that should just work, that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded PostScript to handle my needs
PostScript, in new printers, is extremely rare. Even Brother stopped doing BRSCRIPT a few years back. More of them speak PDF directly. I still don't understand why IPP didn't work. Very odd. It's the un-driver. cheers, Stewart
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 08:56:39PM -0400, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
PostScript, in new printers, is extremely rare. Even Brother stopped doing BRSCRIPT a few years back. More of them speak PDF directly.
Brother advertises "PostScript 3 Emulation" which I thought was code for using Ghostscript or whatever. The problem with my Lexmark printer is that it gags on lots of pdfs, including those generated from tex/xetex, which is not acceptable. -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
On 2020-06-01 9:23 a.m., Peter King via talk wrote:
Brother advertises "PostScript 3 Emulation" which I thought was code for using Ghostscript or whatever.
I just checked: the Brother MFC-L2750DW I have *does* claim to have BR-Script3 and PCL6, but IPP doesn't need to use it. CUPS will usually convert PostScript to PDF in the print process anyway, so BR-Script3 doesn't add anything. Your Lexmark claims to support IPP. This will only work if you're talking to it over a network. Direct USB connection brings problems. *Some* IPP printers support IPP over USB, and the ippusbxd or ipp-usb daemons enable it. I don't know if this is supported by your printer. Can you find your printer via IPP? Try: $ ippfind ipp://BRWD89C6730425A.local:631/ipp/print I get that from my Brother printer. To find what formats your printer supports, try ipptool with the URL returned above and one of the system test scripts: $ ipptool -vt ipp://BRWD89C6730425A.local:631/ipp/print get-printer-attributes.test | grep document-format-supported document-format-supported (1setOf mimeMediaType) = application/octet-stream,image/urf,image/pwg-raster So I see my printer only accepts the two CUPS/IPP raster formats. That's fine: better to do the rasterization inside a fast desktop than rely on some PS/PDF RIP of unknown capability in your printer. It looks like cups 2.3.3-1 for Arch includes ippfind and ipptool, and requires/includes Avahi for printer discovery. I wish I could help more. Printing now is genuinely "forget everything". It's not like I'm accepting lower-quality printing with IPP, either. cheers, Stewart
I've given up printing from Linux. I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the file from Linux, then print from there. Always works. -- William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca> On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 06:23:38PM -0400, Peter King via talk wrote:
Eric S. Raymond was right about CUPS some fourteen years ago, in his essay "The Luxury of Ignorance" (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html), and things really haven't gotten any better. Here's an update since I last posted about six weeks ago.
I had an HP LaserJet 1100a, which worked reasonably well until its internal memory went bad. These things happen. So I got a more recent HP Pro 1102w which is no end of trouble; I could print to it a bit, irregularly, but now not at all -- everything seems to be configured properly but CUPS reports "Waiting for printer to become available" and nothing I do, from writing udev rules to rebooting, makes it available. So I bought another printer, a Lexmark MS415dn, in part for its three-penguin rating [ = "works perfectly with Linux"] on openprinting.org, but it does not work perfectly, spitting out endless pages of gibberish when I sent it PDFs or PostScript files, to the point where it prints only once out of every two or three attempts. I won't go through all the details of what I've tried, but I have tried, and tried, and tried.
More or less at my wit's end -- actually, I can see my wit's end receding in the distance in the rear-view mirror -- and proving that I cannot learn from experience, I'm considering buying something that should just work, that is, of getting a monochrome single-function laser printer with embedded PostScript to handle my needs, which, you'd think, would be a sufficiently humble set of requirements. You'd think. If anyone on this list can recommend such a beast, which can run reliably under Linux (specifically arch linux), I would be almost shamefully greatful. Nearly as good would be cautions about what to avoid. Thanks.
-- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA
http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
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On Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 12:46:16AM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:
I've given up printing from Linux. I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the file from Linux, then print from there. Always works.
Yeah, my workaround is to scp files over to MacOS and print from there, which also works reliably and transparently, with no kerfuffle. Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort. There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes. -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 at 09:26, Peter King via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort. There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes.
I guess I'm surprised a bit by this; my experiences have some parallels and non-parallels... Once upon a time, I did really scary printer hacking, had a project where I built a component that would put bitmaps of peoples' signatures into documents in a print queue so that printed reports would have the Lovely Signatures. There was a step weirder; one of the print queues went to a fax machine, as the task was sending price sheets out to customers (with the Lovely Signature at the bottom). That was, like circa 1992. At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much fraught with troubles. Those were the days of WinModems and WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm) Then, some time in the 20-oughts, (after 2000), I encountered CUPS and had the "breath of fresh air" of it being pretty much dead easy to configure printer usage on Linux. Each time I have gotten a new PC at work has been a point in time where I configured CUPS to talk to a couple of our printers. And my reaction, of late, has been, "It Just Works(tm)" After the old scar tissue from the '90s, it has been just totally easy. I kinda suspect I have had things Dialed To Easy, in view that what I'm inevitably connecting to are networked printers that were to a degree selected to be simple for our varied platform staff (a few Windows, quite a lot of MacOS, and quite a lot of Linux) to connect to, so that I'm not treading any ground that's new to anyone local. But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised. Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a thing? I'm curious as to what may have worsened in the last few years. -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
I have a Deskjet 2130 that I paid pennies for, and it works on my Ubuntu, works on a RedHat Enterprise Linux, works on the chromebooks... It's my first printer in a loooong time, because now I have kids in the school and a printer is essential, but I usually never had issues with CUPS. Mauro http://mauro.limeiratem.com - registered Linux User: 294521 Scripture is both history, and a love letter from God. Em seg., 1 de jun. de 2020 às 11:15, Christopher Browne via talk < talk@gtalug.org> escreveu:
On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 at 09:26, Peter King via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Sad days when people who voluntarily use Linux and are tech-savvy just give up on printing -- printing! -- because it isn't worth the effort. There shouldn't *be* any effort by now; it's 2020, for goodness sakes.
I guess I'm surprised a bit by this; my experiences have some parallels and non-parallels...
Once upon a time, I did really scary printer hacking, had a project where I built a component that would put bitmaps of peoples' signatures into documents in a print queue so that printed reports would have the Lovely Signatures. There was a step weirder; one of the print queues went to a fax machine, as the task was sending price sheets out to customers (with the Lovely Signature at the bottom). That was, like circa 1992.
At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much fraught with troubles. Those were the days of WinModems and WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm)
Then, some time in the 20-oughts, (after 2000), I encountered CUPS and had the "breath of fresh air" of it being pretty much dead easy to configure printer usage on Linux. Each time I have gotten a new PC at work has been a point in time where I configured CUPS to talk to a couple of our printers.
And my reaction, of late, has been, "It Just Works(tm)" After the old scar tissue from the '90s, it has been just totally easy. I kinda suspect I have had things Dialed To Easy, in view that what I'm inevitably connecting to are networked printers that were to a degree selected to be simple for our varied platform staff (a few Windows, quite a lot of MacOS, and quite a lot of Linux) to connect to, so that I'm not treading any ground that's new to anyone local.
But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.
Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a thing? I'm curious as to what may have worsened in the last few years. -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 2020-06-01 10:14 AM, Christopher Browne via talk wrote:
At that time, interoperability with printers and Linux was very much fraught with troubles. Those were the days of WinModems and WinPrinters where Microsoft was trying to capture market by making sure that lots of devices would ONLY talk to Windows(tm)
Back in those days, I was running OS/2 and knew enough to avoid those Winmodems and printers. BTW, I also had a FAX modem, so I faxed myself a sheet that I signed several times. I could then paste my signature on documents which would then be faxed out again. Back then I was using Faxworks and Post Road Mailer, which worked very well together, for handling faxes & email. For example, I could fax to email or a received fax could automagically be emailed out. Or a received email could be sent out via fax. I essentially had a fax server. This was way back in the mid - late 90's. There were a lot of things that could be done in OS/2 that I have not seen elsewhere.
On 2020-06-01 10:14 a.m., Christopher Browne via talk wrote:
But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised.
Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a thing?
I don't think so. Since all printers (except cheap USB-only disposable ones) need to print over wireless from an iPad/iPhone, it's got much simpler. Different, yes, but simpler for the user. I've got a 2012-vintage Epson WorkForce WF7520 large-format inkjet AiO. It supports wireless and IPP v1.0. I've also got a 2019 Brother MFC-L2750DW. It supports wireless and AirPrint (aka IPP v2.0, pretty much). Both are auto-discovered by all my (non-embedded) Linux systems, and I don't need any drivers. The entire installation process of the Brother went like this: 1) unpack from box; 2) remove packing materials; 3) install toner and paper; 4) plug in power; 5) join wireless network from front panel. By the time I got downstairs from where I'd installed the printer, all the computers in the house had found the new printer and added it as a device. This includes an Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu laptop, a couple of Macs, a Windows 10 machine, two Raspberry Pis and an iPad. The only thing that needed a little work was my Android phone, but that wasn't any more than "Find printer" then say yes to the Brother printer driver. All of this is made possible by three technologies: 1) CUPS 2) Bonjour (mDNS/DNS-SD, typically Avahi under Linux) 3) IPP Bonjour announces that the printer's there, IPP negotiates the printer's capabilities, and CUPS sends the data in the right format. If even one of these three is missing, it's endless fighting and pain. The Debian packages I have on my desktop system(s) that enable this are: avahi-autoipd avahi-daemon avahi-utils cups cups-browsed cups-bsd cups-client cups-common cups-core-drivers cups-daemon cups-filters cups-filters-core-drivers cups-ipp-utils cups-pk-helper cups-ppdc cups-server-common printer-driver-cups-pdf printer-driver-gutenprint system-config-printer system-config-printer-common system-config-printer-udev Most of these are installed automatically. I think I had to add cups-ipp-utils, system-config-printer and (oddly) cups to make this work seamlessly on the Raspberry Pis. * I don't strictly need avahi-autoipd and avahi-utils; the Raspberry Pis do fine without them. * cups-bsd is only needed if your fingers automatically type 'lpr -P' instead of 'lp -d', as mine do. * printer-driver-cups-pdf isn't necessary, but gives you print to PDF from everywhere. Since CUPS puts every print job into PDF anyway, this is just a *really* fancy wrapper around 'cat'. * printer-driver-gutenprint gives a bit more control to colour printing for those rare times I need things to be really fiddly. I could do without for 99% of print jobs. All the above did pretty much require me to forget everything I thought I knew about printer admin. I'm glad I don't need that any more. cheers, Stewart
Thanks for the write-up Stewart, very useful for a non-admin home user like me. John.
---------- Original Message ---------- From: "Stewart C. Russell via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> Date: June 1, 2020 at 12:20 PM
On 2020-06-01 10:14 a.m., Christopher Browne via talk wrote: > > But I had gotten myself accustomed to the impression that > "with CUPS, It Just Works(tm)", so colour me surprised. > > Has Microsoft pushed back to try to get WinPrinters back to be a > thing?
I don't think so. Since all printers (except cheap USB-only disposable ones) need to print over wireless from an iPad/iPhone, it's got much simpler. Different, yes, but simpler for the user.
I've got a 2012-vintage Epson WorkForce WF7520 large-format inkjet AiO. It supports wireless and IPP v1.0. I've also got a 2019 Brother MFC-L2750DW. It supports wireless and AirPrint (aka IPP v2.0, pretty much). Both are auto-discovered by all my (non-embedded) Linux systems, and I don't need any drivers. The entire installation process of the Brother went like this:
1) unpack from box; 2) remove packing materials; 3) install toner and paper; 4) plug in power; 5) join wireless network from front panel.
By the time I got downstairs from where I'd installed the printer, all the computers in the house had found the new printer and added it as a device. This includes an Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu laptop, a couple of Macs, a Windows 10 machine, two Raspberry Pis and an iPad. The only thing that needed a little work was my Android phone, but that wasn't any more than "Find printer" then say yes to the Brother printer driver.
All of this is made possible by three technologies:
1) CUPS 2) Bonjour (mDNS/DNS-SD, typically Avahi under Linux) 3) IPP
Bonjour announces that the printer's there, IPP negotiates the printer's capabilities, and CUPS sends the data in the right format. If even one of these three is missing, it's endless fighting and pain.
The Debian packages I have on my desktop system(s) that enable this are:
avahi-autoipd avahi-daemon avahi-utils cups cups-browsed cups-bsd cups-client cups-common cups-core-drivers cups-daemon cups-filters cups-filters-core-drivers cups-ipp-utils cups-pk-helper cups-ppdc cups-server-common printer-driver-cups-pdf printer-driver-gutenprint system-config-printer system-config-printer-common system-config-printer-udev
Most of these are installed automatically. I think I had to add cups-ipp-utils, system-config-printer and (oddly) cups to make this work seamlessly on the Raspberry Pis.
* I don't strictly need avahi-autoipd and avahi-utils; the Raspberry Pis do fine without them.
* cups-bsd is only needed if your fingers automatically type 'lpr -P' instead of 'lp -d', as mine do.
* printer-driver-cups-pdf isn't necessary, but gives you print to PDF from everywhere. Since CUPS puts every print job into PDF anyway, this is just a *really* fancy wrapper around 'cat'.
* printer-driver-gutenprint gives a bit more control to colour printing for those rare times I need things to be really fiddly. I could do without for 99% of print jobs.
All the above did pretty much require me to forget everything I thought I knew about printer admin. I'm glad I don't need that any more.
cheers, Stewart
--- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Thanks to the write-up from Stuart, I managed to print to the HP 1102w printer by disconnecting USB and using wireless IPP protocol. Why this is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't say, but at least I have a way to print from linux now. (Doing admin work I often am in the cycle of getting forms to sign via email --> print the form --> sign it --> scan it back in --> send back via email.) -- Peter King peter.king@utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 at 14:21, Peter King via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
(Doing admin work I often am in the cycle of getting forms to sign via email --> print the form --> sign it --> scan it back in --> send back via email.)
If your forms are in PDF format, and you don't actually need an exact physical copy with the signature in ink, you could look into using Xournal. http://xournal.sourceforge.net/ Use the "Annotate PDF" feature to sign the PDF by using the pen tool, or the image tool to import a previously made signature image. You can scale and move the signature to get it where you want it. Use "Export to PDF" to create a new PDF of the form with your signature merged in. You only need to print if you want your own hard copy of the document, and you still save the initial "print the form --> sign it" steps. -- Scott
I think "falsisign" looks like fun: FalsiScan: Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned https://gitlab.com/edouardklein/falsisign You scan and save a bunch of signatures. Then the code modifies the original PDF to look scanned and puts a random signature where you say to put it. John On Wed, 2020/06/03 03:04:14PM -0400, Scott Allen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: | "sign it --> scan it back in" steps | | I use a Wacom tablet to do the signing.
On 2020-06-03 2:21 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote:
Thanks to the write-up from Stewart, I managed to print to the HP 1102w printer by disconnecting USB and using wireless IPP protocol.
Yay! I'm glad this worked for you. I was hoping my walkthrough would be useful, and was worried it just came across as unhelpful
Why this is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't say
There's much less software between you and the printer when you use IPP. Much less to go wrong. cheers, Stewart
| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 2020-06-03 2:21 p.m., Peter King via talk wrote: | > Why this | > is *easier* with wireless than it is with a direct connection I couldn't | > say | | There's much less software between you and the printer when you use IPP. Much | less to go wrong. Thanks Stewart! I don't like putting printers on my network. Sure, it is convenient. But I don't control their network security. They don't have a firewall that I can examine and configure. They are rather promiscuous. IPv6 could make this worse since it eliminates the security crutch of NAT. Any good firewall should catch this. When it comes to a choice between convenience and security, you can guess what wins. One of our printers is on our LAN.
On 2020-06-04 10:51 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I don't like putting printers on my network. … They don't have a firewall that I can examine and configure.
But … they're inside your router's firewall? Sure, they dial out for updates sometimes, but what doesn't? The one disadvantage of AirPrint - if you want to control access - is that anyone on your network can print at any time. So if you're lining up a special job on special paper, you better let other folks know first. Stewart
| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | But … they're inside your router's firewall? Sure, they dial out for updates | sometimes, but what doesn't? Depending on a single firewall isn't considered good form. Each machine should be hardened too. Otherwise your network is crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. This matters less in simple home networks. But it is still a good idea if some of your other devices have security you cannot trust (eg. smart phones with apps that have some chance of being evil). Windows 10 and most Linux distros have some hardening on each node. I don't know or trust printers. I don't remember the details, but we know that an HP Printer in Saddam's Iraq was secretly working for the NSA.
On Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 12:46:16AM -0400, William Park via talk wrote:
I've given up printing from Linux. I go to Windows 10 laptop, scp the file from Linux, then print from there. Always works.
Hmm, I had not printed from linux in a long time, so I thought I would try. Printed a test page postscript file perfectly first try. So at least my epson WF4630 has no problem with printing from linux (appears to be using ESC-P/R driver in cups). -- Len Sorensen
participants (12)
-
Christopher Browne -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Dave Collier-Brown -
James Knott -
John Moniz -
John Sellens -
lsorense＠csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
Mauro Souza -
Peter King -
Scott Allen -
Stewart C. Russell -
William Park