Linux printing sucks? Or is it just me?

My point is that linux print sharing sucks, not that linux sucks.
Defensive linux advocates would no doubt tell me "no, it's the
manufacturers faults for not providing better drivers" - well fine, but
all the same, regardless of the reasons, linux printing sucks. Or at
least that's the impression I get.

I've deployed several servers, many with printing problems:

1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer
is reset machine needs to be too - the USB device is lost and not
re-detected even if removing/reloading USB & print modules, and
ptal-hp.

2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once
shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver which had weird
margins, and even then everything stops after a day until print
services restarted.

3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would
start printing junk and print queue would need to be cleared. This is
annoying as it wastes paper, and I get called by the users often to say
"can you clear the print queue". They're certainly not getting a very
good impression of their linux server.

Actually, in this e-mail i'm asking about item (3) above. Whilst this
printer works fine in windows, when shared with cups/samba every week
or so a windows client would cause the printer to start outputting
junk. I have the printer in cups set to 'raw', and the clients using
the HP driver. Needless to say that when shared in windows this printer
works fine - except windows itself hangs once in a while, but that's
another matter.

Is this just something I have to put up with as far as linux printing
is concerned? Or does anyone have any better suggestions?

I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
wrong and my problem fixed!

Terence

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 05:26:19 -0800, terence.parker wrote:

> My point is that linux print sharing sucks, not that linux sucks.
> Defensive linux advocates would no doubt tell me "no, it's the
> manufacturers faults for not providing better drivers" - well fine, but
> all the same, regardless of the reasons, linux printing sucks. Or at
> least that's the impression I get.
>
> I've deployed several servers, many with printing problems:
>
> 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer
> is reset machine needs to be too - the USB device is lost and not
> re-detected even if removing/reloading USB & print modules, and
> ptal-hp.
>
> 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once
> shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver which had weird
> margins, and even then everything stops after a day until print
> services restarted.
>
> 3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would
> start printing junk and print queue would need to be cleared. This is
> annoying as it wastes paper, and I get called by the users often to say
> "can you clear the print queue". They're certainly not getting a very
> good impression of their linux server.
>
> Actually, in this e-mail i'm asking about item (3) above. Whilst this
> printer works fine in windows, when shared with cups/samba every week
> or so a windows client would cause the printer to start outputting
> junk. I have the printer in cups set to 'raw', and the clients using
> the HP driver. Needless to say that when shared in windows this printer
> works fine - except windows itself hangs once in a while, but that's
> another matter.
>
> Is this just something I have to put up with as far as linux printing
> is concerned? Or does anyone have any better suggestions?
>
> I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
> wrong and my problem fixed!
>
> Terence

I installed a Brother HL1440 laser on my MDK 10.1 tower using CUPS - very
simple install, and as soon as I was done it automagically appeared on the
other two printers on the net (one MDK, one Gentoo) with no interaction at
all. Works flawlessly.

Also have a networked LaserJet installed on a net with several Linux
clients and several MS too - no problems.

I don't know what the resolution to your problem is. I also previously
worked with a mixed network with shared printers installed on both MS and
Linux servers with no difficulty - that was using RH 7.x.

On 2005-03-09, (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> My point is that linux print sharing sucks, not that linux sucks.

[...]

> 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer

[...]

> 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once

[...]

> 3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would

[...]

> Is this just something I have to put up with as far as linux printing
> is concerned? Or does anyone have any better suggestions?
>
> I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
> wrong and my problem fixed!

Maybe it's an HP problem? Epson printers work fine for me here.

--

John ((E-Mail Removed))

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 05:26:19 -0800, terence.parker wrote:

> My point is that linux print sharing sucks, not that linux sucks.
> Defensive linux advocates would no doubt tell me "no, it's the
> manufacturers faults for not providing better drivers" - well fine, but
> all the same, regardless of the reasons, linux printing sucks. Or at
> least that's the impression I get.
>
> I've deployed several servers, many with printing problems:
>
> 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer
> is reset machine needs to be too - the USB device is lost and not
> re-detected even if removing/reloading USB & print modules, and ptal-hp.

This sounds more like a usb issue, and therefore not really related to
printing...meaning, if said printer were connected in some other way
perhaps it would perform better/more reliably. And, if some other usb
device were connected to the linux box, it too may have issues ? Maybe
something flakey with the usb config on your Linux box ?


> 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once
> shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver which had weird
> margins, and even then everything stops after a day until print services
> restarted.

A printer you yourself call "crap", yet you expect good results ?

> 3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would
> start printing junk and print queue would need to be cleared. This is
> annoying as it wastes paper, and I get called by the users often to say
> "can you clear the print queue". They're certainly not getting a very
> good impression of their linux server.

I have seen this occaisionaly. But on more than just *nix print servers.
Usually when a user tried printing some unusually large file, or some
strange file type. Whatever the cause, I've seen it when printing through
Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac.


> Actually, in this e-mail i'm asking about item (3) above. Whilst this
> printer works fine in windows, when shared with cups/samba every week or
> so a windows client would cause the printer to start outputting junk. I
> have the printer in cups set to 'raw', and the clients using the HP
> driver. Needless to say that when shared in windows this printer works
> fine - except windows itself hangs once in a while, but that's another
> matter.
>
> Is this just something I have to put up with as far as linux printing is
> concerned?

I wouldn't think so, no. Many places depend on linux for printing, and it
works quite well.
For example, we replaced a very flakey Windows NT print server with linux
2 years ago, and it's been rock solid. Serving over 1200 clients, 200
print queus, 24/7, 7 days a week, 365/year.

>Or does anyone have any better suggestions?

Hard to say, since you included no info on :
- Distribution of Linux
- version of Cups
- How the print queues are configured in Cups ( drivers ? filters ? ) -
Version of Samba
- Version of Windows clients
- Print driver version ( not specifics, just if they're reasonably up to
date )

But...
- Is your distribution up to date ? All recent patches installed ?

- Did you try building Cups and/or Samba from source, or are you just
using the version(s) that came with your distribution ? Any updates to
Samba/Cups for your distribution ? Did you install them ?

- Are you doing any filtering on the print queues on the Linux box ? I've
*usually* found it more relaible to do *no* filtering/formatting on the
print server, and let the client take care of it all.

- Any other usb devices being used besides that one printer ? Does that
usb printer work on a differnt Linux server ?

Some possible solutions :

- Don't use Samba. Windows ( since winnt 4 ) natively supports lpr
printing. Cups is a lpr/lpd server. That would remove one thing from the
equation. And, I've found the performance to be better ( YMMV ).

- Don't use Cups. Personally, I prefer LPRng. That is what we're using
at work with very good results. This is not suggesting that Cups is
bad...Only that I prefer a different print server software.

- Do no filtering/formatting on the print server. Not exactly sure how
this is accomplished with Cups, but I know it can be done. That way, all
the formatting is done by the client side drivers, and the print server
simply queues the job, and sends it on it's way to the printer...Not
changing it in any way.

- If possible, build the latest version of Cups/Samba from source, instead
of using the binaries included with your distribution. Yes, it's less
convinient, but sometimes it's just a matter of a bug in a specific
packaged version of software.

- Connect the usb printer to a jet direct type device, and configure your
linux print server to send jobs to that, rather than having the printer
directly connected. Costs a few $$$, but if your problem is strictly usb,
that would solve it.


> I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
> wrong and my problem fixed!

Hardly our place to prove anything. I ( and many others ) have found
Linux to be a very fine solution for many things, serving print jobs to
Windows clients included. But that is not to say it's the right solution
for all situations/problems. Or that it is necessarily easy to get going.
I do not doubt you're having problems. But that does not mean that
"linux print sharing sucks". Using that logic, Windows faxing would suck
if I had problems with Winfax ( I do BTW, but that's another story ).
Maybe my modem sucks. Or maybe Winfax sucks. Maybe I'm sending
garbage to Winfax, and that's the problem. But it doesn't mean Windows
faxing sucks.

Anyway...What you are trying to do is not unreasonable. Some good links
follow.

Samba printing :
http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/.../printing.html

A Decent printing book, available on Amazon :
http://tinyurl.com/6qk5z


--
- Matt -

First of all, thanks for the excellent reply - much appreciated.

And second of all, all three deployments are using Gentoo Linux -
possibly not the best choice for production systems, but it does at
least present me with the good opportunity to upgrade packages fairly
quickly if necessary... so for that matter my CUPSD is fairly up to
date, as is Samba (though the exact version numbers evade me this
minute).

Previously, the Laserjet 2100 was connected to a Red Hat 8 setup - but
I had similar problems with regards to junk being output by the printer
occasionally.


Matt Payton wrote:

> > 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp..........
>
> This sounds more like a usb issue, and therefore not really related
to
> printing...meaning, if said printer were connected in some other way
> perhaps it would perform better/more reliably. And, if some other
usb
> device were connected to the linux box, it too may have issues ?
Maybe
> something flakey with the usb config on your Linux box ?

Yes, I am very much a parallel port person myself if possible - just
like I prefer real COM port modems vs. all this pseudo winmodem crap
you get these days (though that said nobody uses Modems over here
anymore anyways). Strangely though, the 3330 works even less well
through parallel port - presumably since it still needs a driver
(firmware?) layer to work properly, and also scanning through lp would
seem silly.

I have tried both usb-uhci as well as uhci, both loaded as modules, but
both have similar problems. Basically the printer needs restarting a
lot now due to a 3330 design fault (scanner warm up takes exceptionally
long) - but every time we do this the server also needs to be
restarted. Strange. There are no other USB devices connected to the
machine.

Anyhow it's not important, as the printer looks close to needing to be
repaired/replaced anyways - either of which would solve the problem.


> > 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but
once
> > shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver.....

> A printer you yourself call "crap", yet you expect good results ?

Well yes, it was a crap printer, and certainly not my choice... but
nonetheless it's part of this company's inventory so I had to deal with
it! That said, it works fine in Windows. According to linuxprinting.org
it should work fine in linux too, but I had problems with that. Perhaps
I should use CUPS LPD/LPR printing directly from WinXP as suggested for
the Laserjet 2100.... this might help.


> For example, we replaced a very flakey Windows NT print server with
linux
> 2 years ago, and it's been rock solid. Serving over 1200 clients,
200
> print queus, 24/7, 7 days a week, 365/year.

Lucky you! Well, that said, I do have a server which prints to an HP
Laserjet 2200M and that has no problems whatsoever... so I guess it's
really hit and miss depending on the printer?


> Hard to say, since you included no info on :
> - Distribution of Linux
> - version of Cups
> - How the print queues are configured in Cups ( drivers ? filters ? )
-
> Version of Samba
> - Version of Windows clients
> - Print driver version ( not specifics, just if they're reasonably up
to
> date )
> [.....]
>
> Some possible solutions :
>
> - Do no filtering/formatting on the print server. Not exactly sure
how
> this is accomplished with Cups, but I know it can be done. That way,
all
> the formatting is done by the client side drivers, and the print
server
> simply queues the job, and sends it on it's way to the printer...Not
> changing it in any way.
> .........

Previously this printer was connected to a Novell Netware 3.12 server,
but since that's insanely old has since been migrated to linux. Gentoo
has been fine so far as an internet gateway, squid proxy, e-mail/web
server etc... but printing is the only problem I seem to be having
problems with.

As mentioned, it runs Gentoo, so everything is compiled fro source and
fairly new. CUPS is configured for raw printing already - drivers are
client side and provided by HP for Windows.

I remember once upon a time trying LPRng and having problems with it,
so then switched to cups. But that was a while ago.

In any case, I think your suggestion of getting windows to connect
direct through LPR/LPD is a good one, so I shall try that first and see
what results I get. Since I have managed to get a 2200M working fine on
a similar setup, I half suspect that the printer perhaps doesn't have
enough memory inside. But I can hardly tell the company they ought to
buy a new printer, since that wouldn't seem a viable solution for a
perfectly good printer. If I can't solve the problem in linux, I might
just have to do the print sharing through windows... and then put up
with restarting the computer every few days!


> Hardly our place to prove anything. I ( and many others ) have found
> Linux to be a very fine solution for many things, serving print jobs
to
> Windows clients included. But that is not to say it's the right
solution
> for all situations/problems. Or that it is necessarily easy to get
going.
> I do not doubt you're having problems. But that does not mean that
> "linux print sharing sucks". Using that logic, Windows faxing would
suck
> if I had problems with Winfax ( I do BTW, but that's another story ).

> Maybe my modem sucks. Or maybe Winfax sucks. Maybe I'm sending
> garbage to Winfax, and that's the problem. But it doesn't mean
Windows
> faxing sucks.

I generally recommend linux servers for all my deployments, though time
and time again I do still find a few recurring problems - printing
being one of them. Samba would usually work fine, the server would be
very stable, both apache and sendmail/postfix would also be fine... but
printing I just can't seem to get it right. Yet you have convinced me
that many people DO in fact have no problems, so I have no idea!!
Perhaps it's just by chance that all the printers I deal with have
problems? (As the other poster said... they're all from HP - that's
coincidental BTW).

Incidentally, I personally use Macs and my Epson EPL-6200L printer
causes me problems there too... but i'm convinced it's driver related.
Printer sharing in OS X never seems to work for me - everything would
just go stale after a couple of print outs and a reboot would be
necessary. *sigh*

Windows faxing would suck if as a result of windows being a load of
trollop the machine needs to be restarted all the time. Incidentally,
the same people who have the Laserjet 2100 that i'm trying to
troubleshoot do all their faxing through a Win98 machine with WinFax
installed. The other day they had to reinstall Winfax for some reason,
and the machine itself is very unstable (Win98). I'm half tempted to
just have them buy an eMac and fax through that. How sophisticated a
fax system does one need? You can receive with the mac's built in
faxing capabilities, and send to multiple recipients using the system
address book. Sounds enough for me!!

Anyways, thanks again for the help.

Terence

On 2005-03-09, (E-Mail Removed) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> 1. HP Laserjet 3330 through ptal-hp. Works fine, but each time printer
> is reset machine needs to be too - the USB device is lost and not
> re-detected even if removing/reloading USB & print modules, and
> ptal-hp.

Are you doing USB-over-ethernet? If not, what's this to do with
networking?

> 2. Laserjet 1000 (a crap "windows printer") - got it to work, but once
> shared with samba clients must use generic PS driver which had weird
> margins, and even then everything stops after a day until print
> services restarted.

Samba clients, so they're on a network, but it sounds like the
network itself is fine. So what's this to do with networking?

> 3. HP Laserjet 2100... works fine, but every now and then printer would
> start printing junk and print queue would need to be cleared. This is
> annoying as it wastes paper, and I get called by the users often to say
> "can you clear the print queue". They're certainly not getting a very
> good impression of their linux server.

Are packets dropping somehow? If not, what's this to do with networking?

> I do still think linux printing sucks, but look forward to being proven
> wrong and my problem fixed!

I do still think linux printing has nothing to do with linux
networking. You might try .setup, .admin, or .misc next time.
(There are other linux groups, too, many of which would be more
appropriate for printing issues than .networking.)

--keith

--
kkeller-(E-Mail Removed)
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom
see X- headers for PGP signature information