A couple of months ago, my brother-in-law asked me for help. He had bought his fiancée a printer for her new computer. Well, I'm the go-to guy when all things technical need a little push in this family and since my brother-in-law generally keeps to himself, I thought: "New printer, new 'puter. What the heck, it shouldn't take two seconds"
Boy, was I ever wrong!
Now let me explain about my brother-in-law. He's no power user. But he's a smart guy, he fixes his own cars. He can handle people. I mean, he should have been able to take care of this. But, he told me how he had had problems with the CD driver, how Windows XP had told him it could not read the CD. He even told me he tried to copy the CD's contents to the computer and then tried to run the installation program for the printer's driver. Only then, the installation application threw errors at him in mid-install. He downloaded new and updated driver software straight from the manufacturers website; to no avail. The computer kept spouting up errors... Then, he tried to install the printer driver on his own computer... Lo' and behold, no hassles at all. The driver installed, the printer printed.
The curious thing was, all the hardware was made by the same manufacturer. Highly-positive some would say, for a favorable conclusion.
The wisdom of many years troubleshooting Windows came to my mouth nimbly, I said: "Could be two things, either you have a corrupted Windows XP install, or your fiancée's computer USB ports don't work correctly." And then I sentenced, smugly, "Bring 'em to me, I'll fix it."
Little did I suspect, that I would have to eat my own words later....
My brother-in-law brought everything except his fiancée's monitor. And I noticed that the keyboard and mouse were wireless. But, they connected to a wireless USB hub. So, my idea that the USB ports of the computer where misconfigured or malfunctioning didn't hold any water. That just left me with a corrupted Win XP install, and since I had never seen such a thing...
I hooked up everything, including the printer. I uninstalled the driver. Tried to install it again, but the XP gave me errors. I downloaded updated drivers, no dice. I went to the highly-positive manufacturer's knowledge base. Well, the printer seemed to have it's share of problems because there was a lengthy and involved page detailing how to uninstall and then reinstall the software drivers for this particular printer. I followed the article's steps to the letter, twice. No success.
I began to think that the printer itself was faulty... Perhaps it was the USB cable.
All the while, in the back of my mind, an idea was forming. "Use the force, Luke!", my subconscious kept saying. After one hour of troubleshooting hardware that, by all means, should work well together I started listening to my subconscious. I translated it's message as, "Try it with Knoppix, you dummy!" So I did.
Let me tell you. Up until this moment, I had not needed to install a printer in Linux. I had heard that configuring CUPS was rather scary. I decided to try anyway.
I booted the computer in question with my Knoppix Live CD. Knoppix has a menu in KDE where you configure mostly everything. And sure enough, a Configure Printer option is there. I clicked on that, and dialog box popped up. I choose the install printer option. A side by side list of manufacturers and printers came up. I choose the Highly-Positive manufacturer on the left side. To my amazement, the manufacturer's printer model was on the list in the right side. I chose that, and told Knoppix to make that my default printer. I saw the printer immediately appear in the dialog box and thought doubtfully, "Is that it?"
So I opened OpenOffice.org (no pun intended). Wrote some lines, inserted a graphic. I clicked on the printer icon and before I knew it the printer had printed my document.
I could never get the printer to work with the computer within Windows XP. Even though I wasted an hour and a half with Windows. However, I had the printer printing in less than five minutes using Knoppix; and that includes the time the computer took in booting up Knoppix. I used to think Linux wasn't ready for the desktop. Needless to say, I don't think so anymore.
My brother-in-law decided to switch his own printer for his fiancée's one.
The information soldier digs Linux on the desktop...
