[gentoo-user] new system, printing suddenly fails for all printers

Alan E. Davis

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Jul 2, 2009, 8:50:09 PM7/2/09

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I've been wrangling with a new gentoo install, on an AMD X2 64 bit machine. It's been a problematic experience, but when the system works right, it works really right.

Printing has suddenly failed. I had installed foo2zjs in support of an HP P1005 printer, but it was masked by ~amd64. Then foomatic-db collided, so I upped that to ~amd64. Meanwhile, and I'm not sure this was the problem, the printer that had been working, and the deskjet that had also been working both started to fail. I've been wrestling with many issues, including alsa. There isn't any sound, and I"ve finally compiled a genkernel but the sound isn't working, neither is printing.

I've seen a plethora of messages about failure to print, often cups. I have reinstalled cups, new useflags, restarted, done several things, no change. The printers are ok. Ubuntu's install disk has sound. I thought maybe alsasound was causing a problem, because when I stop the machine, it stalls on stopping alsa.

I need to print. Maybe tonight I'll get on irc. Meanwhile, can someone suggest anything?

Print jobs show up both in the localhost:631 and the gnome cups interfaces. They show up, and show as having printed. No such luck.

I'll try to # emerge -ua --newuse world after adding ~amd64 to make.conf.

maybe I don't belong with gentoo. I have to USE the computer. I can't find a distro I want, though, that I feel confident I can install quickly and be up to speed. I've cherried out this system with most of the tools I need. Maybe gotten too crazy with USE flags:

ngs were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
# These are the USE flags that were used in addition to what is provided by the
# profile used for building.
USE="mmx sse sse2 kpathsea gnome svg X avahi gtk hal dbus \
     startup-notification xinerama cups xscreensaver nvidia usb truetype jpeg png \
     raw tiff faac faad mp3 theora v4l2 vorbis x264 xvid encode \
     pdf exif xml consolekit embedded kde qt3support"

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~amd64"

VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse"
FOO2ZJS_DEVICES="hpp1005"
LINGUAS="en"
# Does it work to have layman sourced after?AED
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=/usr/local/portage
source /usr/local/portage/layman/make.conf

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/gentoo/"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

Some use flages in package.use

net-print/foo2zjs foomaticdb
net-print/hplip cupsddk
app-editors/emacs-cvs gif jpeg png tiff xft
net-print/cups ppds dbus X
net-dns/avahi mdnsresponder-compat
app-text/texlive doc dvipdfm graphics png
x11-base/xorg-x11 bitmap-fonts truetype-fonts type1-fonts
app-editors/emacs-cvs xft
gnome-base/gnome-volume-manager automount
media-video/transcode dvd
net-p2p/deluge libnotify
net-dns/avahi qt3 dbus
media-gfx/gimp pdf

I am using a few overlays: science, dev-zero, emacs.

Thank you for any ideas on now to troubleshoot this. Also with Alsa.

Alan Davis

"...can the human soul be glimpsed through a microscope? Maybe, but you'd definitely need one of those very good ones with two eyepieces."

-- Woody Allen, quoted by B. A. Palevitz

walt

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Jul 3, 2009, 10:10:24 AM7/3/09

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On 07/02/2009 05:46 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> I've been wrangling with a new gentoo install, on an AMD X2 64 bit
> machine. It's been a problematic experience, but when the system works
> right, it works really right.
>
> Printing has suddenly failed. I had installed foo2zjs in support of an
> HP P1005 printer, but it was masked by ~amd64. Then foomatic-db
> collided, so I upped that to ~amd64. Meanwhile, and I'm not sure this
> was the problem, the printer that had been working, and the deskjet that
> had also been working both started to fail. I've been wrestling with
> many issues, including alsa. There isn't any sound, and I"ve finally
> compiled a genkernel but the sound isn't working, neither is printing.

I've had both problems several times in the past, always caused by dumb
things that, of course, should never happen but often do anyway.

First the sound. I still don't know why but often when rebooting with
a different kernel (I do it often) the sound mixer will wind up with
certain channels either muted or turned down all the way. Because these
channels are not visible on my gnome volume control I have to use the
alsamixer to find the problem and restore the proper settings until
the next reboot. Dumb, but that's the way it is.

You should definitely *not* unload your kernel sound modules when shutting
down -- it's silly and causes problems. Turn this 'feature' off in your
/etc/conf.d/alsasound by setting UNLOAD_ON_STOP="no" and KILLPROC_ON_STOP=
"no".

Printing. Usually my printing problems come from having the wrong printing
"device" set in the cups Modify Printer section (localhost:631 as you said).

Usually the problem is that I didn't have the printer connected and turned
on when setting the 'printer device' and therefore the proper choice didn't
appear in the menu. Really dumb.

Anyway, start by going back through that printer setup menu system and try
every choice until you find one that works -- and make sure the printer is
turned on :o)

Alan E. Davis

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Jul 3, 2009, 11:50:11 AM7/3/09

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Thank you Walt:

On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:02 AM, walt <w41...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've had both problems several times in the past, always caused by dumb
things that, of course, should never happen but often do anyway.

Me too. Maybe so this time as well, at least I hope so.

First the sound. I still don't know why but often when rebooting with
a different kernel (I do it often) the sound mixer will wind up with
certain channels either muted or turned down all the way. Because these
channels are not visible on my gnome volume control I have to use the
alsamixer to find the problem and restore the proper settings until
the next reboot. Dumb, but that's the way it is.

There is no PCM channel in alsamixer! Maybe I will try alsamixergui, where I saw switches once.

You should definitely *not* unload your kernel sound modules when shutting
down -- it's silly and causes problems. Turn this 'feature' off in your
/etc/conf.d/alsasound by setting UNLOAD_ON_STOP="no" and KILLPROC_ON_STOP=
"no".

Duly noted and exorcized.

Printing. Usually my printing problems come from having the wrong printing
"device" set in the cups Modify Printer section (localhost:631 as you said).

Usually the problem is that I didn't have the printer connected and turned
on when setting the 'printer device' and therefore the proper choice didn't
appear in the menu. Really dumb.

Two printers are connected, and turned on. One printer, the deskjet, started one job, a testpage, got to 17% and stayed there a good long while.

Anyway, start by going back through that printer setup menu system and try
every choice until you find one that works -- and make sure the printer is
turned on :o)

Thank you again. I earnestly hope they both iron out quickly. I'm starting to grow fond of this install.

Alan E. Davis

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Jul 3, 2009, 12:10:09 PM7/3/09

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Well, like Walt said, printing configuration has often been a problem. When I checked, after rebooting after an upgrade to ~amd64, the printers were both setup as network printers. They are not. As soon as I changed the widget to indicate the printer was local, it started priinting! Dumb things indeed...

Sound is a more arcane area, not there yet.

walt

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Jul 3, 2009, 12:50:06 PM7/3/09

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On 07/03/2009 08:48 AM, Alan E. Davis wrote:

> There is no PCM channel in alsamixer! Maybe I will try alsamixergui,
> where I saw switches once.

Do you have something like this in /dev/snd?:

$ls -l /dev/snd
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 0 2009-07-03 04:42 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 24 2009-07-03 04:42 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 16 2009-07-03 04:42 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 25 2009-07-03 04:42 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 17 2009-07-03 04:42 pcmC0D1p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 1 2009-07-03 04:42 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 2009-07-03 04:42 timer

If not, maybe some kernel modules are not loaded or installed?

eam...@gmail.com

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Jul 3, 2009, 4:30:16 PM7/3/09

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Why all the handwringing? Just use hplip when using a HP printer and all the hair-pulling will disappear in seconds.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

From: "Alan E. Davis"
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 01:48:57 +1000
To: <gento...@lists.gentoo.org>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: new system, printing suddenly fails for all printers

Alan E. Davis

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Jul 3, 2009, 8:40:05 PM7/3/09

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On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 6:20 AM, <eam...@gmail.com> wrote:

Why all the handwringing? Just use hplip when using a HP printer and all the hair-pulling will disappear in seconds.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

eamjr56:

I also am amazed at the support from HP. Recalling the days some 12 years ago, and so many hoops to jump through and then only to get an HP printer to work partially.

What was curious about this, I had used HPLIP. Somehow, all of a sudden, all printers were seen as network printers. Either I did a dumb thing of collossal proportions, or some update wrote over the top of my config files. What I now suspect is that I had consented to let dispatch-conf replace my original config file, not understanding the consequences.

Live and learn,

Alan

Mark Shields

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Jul 4, 2009, 2:30:10 PM7/4/09

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On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Alan E. Davis <lng...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've been wrangling with a new gentoo install, on an AMD X2 64 bit machine. It's been a problematic experience, but when the system works right, it works really right.

I would really recommend getting rid of the genkernel and compiling a kernel from sources.

--
- Mark Shields

Alan E. Davis

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Jul 4, 2009, 10:30:15 PM7/4/09

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On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Mark Shields<laeb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I would really recommend getting rid of the genkernel and compiling a kernel
> from sources.
>

I will try again to do so.

Alan

Roland Puntaier

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Jul 6, 2009, 8:50:06 AM7/6/09

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