solutions to dying apps, disk partitions, and USB printer

[Jamie LaRue]

In an effort to improve my newbie ratio (plaintive expressions of 
ignorance to authoritative answers), I thought I share the results of 
some recent frustration.

First, setup info: G3 iMac, 160 megs of memory, 4 gig drive. YDL 2.3.

1. Problem: My programs were dying midlaunch. Solution as the command 
"df -h" showed me, I had only 3% of my disk space free. Two gigs is not 
enough for the Home/Office install and OpenOffice.

2. Problem: couldn't seem to recover all the disk space. Solution: use 
CUSTOM, not DEFAULT installation, which allows you to delete even Mac 
partitions, all the way back to hda2.

3. Problem (the worst): after configuring my USB HP LaserJet 1200 using 
printconf-gui (as instructed on the USB printer setup how to at YDL), I 
would successfully establish, and print a test page. But when I tried to 
  print from other applications, I would get a total lockup -- no 
printing, no mouse movement, keyboard dead. The only choice was to hit 
the power button. After two times, the file system was damaged, and my 
only choice was to reinstall. Twice a day. 6 days. I was at the brink of 
despair.I did, in fact, entirely dismantle the damn machine and went 
back to my OS 9 Powerbook.

Answer: do NOT use printconf-gui or printtool, despite what the YDL how 
to says. Instead, use cups. apt-get update, apt-get install cups, then 
follow the instructions at 
www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/cups_long.shtml.Note 
that you do have to be root, and I did have some kind of trouble get 
there (localhost:631/printers) through Konquerer. Had to use Mozilla. 
But then it went pretty easily.