[Wine] Re: Need some feedback on this Printing Solution

judgedredd wineforum-user at winehq.org
Mon Feb 15 01:54:16 CST 2010


Boy, there is a lot here. Seems to have opened up a can of worms, which seems not to be unusual with Linux/Ubuntu/other distros.

I will address all posts here and give specific replies where needed.

Oiaohm, I went to linuxprinting.org which is where I have been before and found it next to useless as the site has a coding bug in it where it causes the page to hang or not reload when choosing the type of printers (I have found these sorts of errors part and parcel of what I call the Linux mentality) and then models. I tried using four different browsers and just gave up to go back another day. I eventually did find that the MP130 is not listed but remembered that the iP1500 drivers should allow the MP130 to work. I found these drivers but then found the instructions too time consuming to figure out (yes, another one of those Linux/Ubuntu/other distro issues) But thanks for the time you took to post.  I also see that later you had a go at Danila for posting garbage links (rightly so). Well, anyone who posts so-called 'solutions' without stating which version the post is for should be ripped the way you did with Danila. Why? The post that Danila gave deals with getting iP1500 drivers to work with Ubuntu version 6.06 LTS. 

Now, how many of you have realised that when Ubuntu (or any other distro) gets updated things 'break' because the [bleep]ing programmers change how things get updated/installed/used/viewed/configured etc? With a lot of these 'solutions' they are version specific and DO NOT work with other versions (like with 9.10). So a WHOLE afternoon wasted trying to implement this 'fix'. Yes, garbage links indeed (which is another Linux issue).

Danila, See the post above and below. And I really hate it when 'solutions' are given that don't actually work. I have wasted nearly a month of my time, multiplied by the amount of stress involved on top of that in dealing with time-sensitive issues in my life. As to your comment about not going back to Windows. I would go back to XP (not Vista or Windows 7) in a heartbeat, if not for the fact that there is only one more thing to configure (the printer). Otherwise I would have got my mum to get an Apple or reinstall Windows. Why? Because these OSes BLOODY WORK!!!!! Linux is NEVER going to replace these two in a million years. Period. There are 2 hours worth of reasons I could list right off the top of my head. Bottom line? Anyone who is involved in the creation of Linux distros has no clue to what the customer (the 90% that just want a computer to work out of the box) wants, only what they think the customer wants. Jobs and Gates knew right from the get go and built empires on that knowledge with inferior products (although Apple has moved way ahead in my humble opinion).

Perryh thanks for your post, it told me that what I am trying to do is probably impossible (but I know that anything is possible in the computing world if anyone put his/her mind to it - like making OSes work with only 4MB of memory!) with the way things are set up at the moment. Unfortunately you don't seem to understand that the ONLY reason I got my mum to install WINE in the first place was to try to get around the lack of Linux printer drivers specific to the Canon MP130, thinking that WINE could allow the use of the Windows software printer drivers to make the printer work on this Linux machine (which is impossible to do under native Linux/Ubuntu without installing DIFFERENT drivers which only get the printer to work but not the scanner). SO more time wasted to get a really simple thing done (and it really is simple - programmers/dumbass corporations are what make it difficult or next to impossible).

Martin, you seem to have missed the whole point of why I tried to get my mum to install Wine. I hope that you understand now. Mind you, your tips about setting the parameters was very welcome and valuable. Thank you.

David, asking for help is [bleep]ing time consuming. I don't have the time to spend on doing endless posts. I thought that installing Linux/Ubuntu would save me from having to talk to my mum nearly every week about one problem or another that she was having with Windows. If I had known what I know now, I would have NEVER gone the route of installing Ubuntu. That is for the ones who are masochisitc/insane (unless you have years to play around with it without it being your main PC).

This just about covers all the posts. 

Personally I think that Linux/Ubuntu sucks big time and I hate it with a passion, not because of the OS itself but with the way that people have tried to create OSes from Linus' (Torvalds) work. The BIG mistake that everyone has made is to expect regular users to install just about EVERYTHING to do with media by themselves, as well as expecting that printers will work, and that users will be able to use the Terminal Window (when I say users I do NOT mean the geeks/nerds/programmers/computer scientist/ etc who's role - it seems - is to make it difficult for the rest of us to enjoy what potentially was a great OS).

There is one valubale thing I learnt from trying to install 4 different flavors of Linux on my machine back in 1999 (and after 1 week of trying it never worked properly on my computer). Partitioning my hard drive. Since I observed all the distros doing this I did it with my Windows box and subsequently all my laptops (into these partitions: Windows, Programs, Temp, Swap, MyDocuments, Spare1, Spare2) and have NEVER had a problem with any Windows install since (unless a virus/trojan screwed things up).

The Linux mentality can be observed at work in the way the official Ubuntu forum is set up. I have to google a query dealing with Ubuntu to get an Ubuntu specific post. Using the actual forum search facility is a nightmare and causes error pages to come up 95% of the time (saying I have put in a search term incorrectly or done something else wrong). That is how screwed up these guys are in their thinking. Taking something elegant and simple (Linux) and making it impossible to understand and use for the majority of us that would have liked to get away from the scam (bloatware, endless upgraded, etc) of Windows.







More information about the wine-users mailing list