printing (finally some success)

[Derick Centeno]

Hi Paul:
I'm glad to hear of some success.  Now to the next part which I hinted
at previously and it is related to the question before us now.

The CUPS application is simply telling you that the name of your server
where it is running is called localhost.  If you were to use your system
to email others your email address would be paul at localhost.com.  The
problem is localhost is just a variable, meaning it is acting just like
a variable x where x=3.  In other words, the term or variable
"localhost" is intended to be replaced by any name you provide whenever
you have decided upon one.

It is true that most people decide upon a name for their server at the
time when they are installing YDL, but as you will soon discover this is
not a necessity.  Let's consider this as standard practice for system
administrator, which you are as a Linux user running his own server.
You can check on the name of your server by doing this:

$ hostname
localhost

Note that the next line is the current name of your host or server.

Let's switch to CUPS.

Placing that location localhost:631 into the URL merely accesses the
CUPS application through the browser.  However, you will not have access
to CUPS itself nor any commands affecting any printer unless you enter
the root password.  CUPS expects the name to be root, and the password
to the same root password created and used when YDL was first installed.

If you understand that, then moving forward into the next explanation
discussing root, superuser and different users and sudoer should be
clear

The name of root is usually reserved for accessing all aspects of the
Linux OS which allows complete rewrites of everything.  If something
get's messed up as a result, it is on you to fix it.  As this can be and
has been a nightmare for more than one soul, the defense against this is
to create an alternate name as a user which has access for a limited
preset amount of time to all system resources and commands.  This is the
idea of sudoer.  The sudoer command allows temporary access because
there is a separate registration process where a user allowed the same
but time-limited access to all root can do, but requires the password of
that particular user recognized and acknowledged as sudoer.

The other option is to use the command superuser which has a shorter
name called su.  The advantage to using su over superuser or even root
is that at a terminal window, su is faster to type than any other
command and su has the exact same recognition as root and doesn't
require a separate registration process but it always requires knowledge
and use of the same password which roots uses.  Also using su is not
time-limited.

One can reserve or avoid using su until one is more competent or skilled
as regards system administration and programming.

Now let's return to changing the hostname.  It should be clear that one
can use any of the above alternatives ways, for clarity let's use su.
Also let's suppose that it has been decided to switch the name of your
server from localhost to excalibur.  Here's the process:

$ su
password:
# hostname excalibur
# exit
$
We are done.
To check do this:

$ hostname
excalibur

That's it!

Good Luck...

On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 23:51 -0500, Paul Higgins wrote:
> Thanks for the advice.  I'm currently using KDE rather than Gnome, but your 
> points are well taken.  Basically, I missed a couple of settings in K Menu > 
> Control Center > Peripherals > Printers.  In the KDE print wizard, you need 
> to select "other printer type" under "backend selection".  The printer 
> address can be entered there as <lpd://[IP address]/>.  After that it was a 
> simple matter of selecting the proper driver for my printer.
> 
> There is one confusing thing about the CUPS print system that I haven't 
> figured out yet.  I can make changes to the print system using the KDE 
> Control Center, but if I use CUPS in a browser (the CUPS address is 
> <http://localhost:631/>), the browser just hangs when I select "manage 
> printers".  My Epson 1520 never actually appears in a browser window.  By 
> using a terminal, I can see that running CUPS from a browser also starts up 
> several processes (cupsd, printers.cgi) that use up a lot of processor power 
> (basically all of it) and these continue to run until reboot (or until they 
> are stopped by using the kill command).  I don't know what's up with that.  
> However, CUPS from Control Center does work, so I guess I'll just forget 
> about accessing it from a browser.
> 
> -PRH
> 
> On Wednesday 07 June 2006 09:03, Derick Centeno wrote:
> > Before you boot into Linux make sure all the printers are connected
> > properly and on.
> >
> > Within the Gnome environment do the following:
> > Select the YDL symbol then look for System Settings, and select
> > Printing.
> > A dialog box will appear asking you to enter your root password (if
> > your Linux was set up well there should be a password for root which is
> > different from any password assigned to any user -- even if you are the
> > only user.).
> >
> > After the above has been completed the Printer Configuration interface
> > appears.  You will note various tabs which you can open and see what
> > settings need to be changed or refined so that you can make the
> > appropriate settings.  If you select the tab Queue type, you will
> > notice a pop-up.  Click upon that pop-up which initially appears as
> > local .... something or other, and you'll find other selections
> > enabling to configure any networked printers according to their
> > respective networking parameters/requirements.
> >
> > That should be it.
> >
> > Good luck...
> >
> > On Jun 7, 2006, at 1:19 AM, Paul Higgins wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I'm having a heck of a time getting printing set up in YDL (4.0.1).
> > > I'm not
> > > really new to CUPS, since it's been a part of OS X for a while now,
> > > and I've
> > > been using the Gimp-Print package for OS X for a long time.  However,
> > > I can't
> > > seem to get my Epson printer to work in YDL.
> > >
> > > My Epson 1520 has a network card installed, and I have all the IP
> > > address
> > > information, etc.  I know in OS X I had to set the queue to lp to get
> > > it to
> > > work, but I can't find the same settings in YDL.
> > >
> > > Any ideas?
> 
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