Post 2263 - Grr!

I took a sick day today.  My migraines kicked in.  By lunch time, after sleeping all morning, it was gone.  Which is good.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I bought a new Samsung printer the other week.  It was a clearance item for $50.  Brand new, in the box.  I already had a few printers, but this guy was wireless.  I could add it to my home network.    It is a Samsung ML-2955DW.  I figured out on my own that "ML" must stand for "monochrome laser".  The "W" probably stands for "wireless".   Can't help  you with the "D".

I have spent the last 2.5 hours trying to get my linux computers to talk to this printer, to no avail.  The cd that came with the printer simply is not recognizable by these machines.  I will have to look at the cd's contents on a windows computer at my work.  Maybe there is a user's manual that can help me.  Perhaps there is a .deb file or something that I can move to a memory stick or whatever so that I can install it on one of my home computers.  After that, I may be able to add it to my network.  If not, I will return the damned thing.

I have come to like linux a lot over the last couple of years.  I find that when something works, it just works.  If it doesn't just work, you can download a package from the net somewhere, install it, and reboot the machine.   Usually then it works.  I did that with a couple samsung ml-1915's last year.  Ten minutes per machine.

A couple other samsung printers just worked when I hooked them up to a linux computer.  The computer in question would just know what the exact model of the printer was, and therefore print with no effort whatsoever.

One of those printers was something I got from a guy off kijiji last summer.  He had tried for a long time to get it working on his Mac, but the newest version of Snowleopard would not talk to that printer no way, no how.   He was therefore reluctantly selling it.   He wasn't happy about it.

It had been on the market for a few months.  He had reduced the price considerably.  It was finally going for all of 20 dollars.  To sweeten the pot, he was including a usb printer cable, which was not included with the original purchase.  He was also throwing in an unopened box of toner.  Like I said, it was 20 bucks for all that stuff.   When I got it home and plugged it in and attached it to one of my linux machines, it worked right from the get go.  Months later, it still works perfectly, and I haven't even needed to use the new box of toner yet.  I keep that printer at my mother's.  Remember the pictures of Newbie sitting on top of a printer at my mother's?  That printer.

Despite all the above, if something just doesn't work in linux, and you can't download a damn package to get it working, then it seems that there is very little you can do to get the blankety-blank thing to work.  Downloading this, installing that, trying ndiswrapper, nothing works.  Of course, the same thing can be said for Windows, which has orphaned untold numbers of peripherals over the years as new versions of the OS came out.  And it is just a myth that Mac's can just make any device work, as I mentioned above.

I will try to get this working for another evening.  If not, then back to Staples it goes.

Yeah, computers are fun.  Lots of fun.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy