An Idea for FC4

[Jeffrey D. Yuille]

Hello Sirs, 

      I don't know if anyone has suggested this before, but I was
curious about something:  in the next release of Fedora Core (FC4),
during the installation of Fedora, why can't there be an automatic
detection and configuration of printers, just as there are automatic
detections of other devices during installation?  I have had difficulty
in printing over the network with Fedora Core where the printer is
attached to a Fedora Core 3 box. I have Googled all over the internet
where I have found info about setting up printing with CUPS, however I
have not been able to print over a small network.  By the way, I know
that printers can be automatically set up in other distributions of
Linux (Mandrake, for one) that have allowed me to print wirelessly and
though Ethernet over a small network.  

     Anyway, this is just a suggestion.  Are there any plans to allow
for the automatic detection and installation of printing in Fedora Core
4 when it becomes available?

[Jef Spaleta]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:49:40 -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille
<jeffy5(a)optonline.net&gt; wrote:
>        Anyway, this is just a suggestion.  Are there any plans to
> allow for
>  the automatic detection and installation of printing in Fedora Core 4 when
>  it becomes available?    
I'm not sure exactly what you want to see thats not being done now. 
Having difficulty printing over 'the network'  could be the result of
a number of different problems that would have to be solved before
printing detection can be done.  So maybe its best to analyze why you
are having a problem before we talk about solutions.

You want printers on the network to be detected and configured during
the install.... as in part of anaconda?  Or do you mean post-install 
as part of the functions of firstboot?  Asking anaconda to do this
seems wrong to me.  Having this as in firstboot doesn't seem so wrong.

But the question i guess is this appropriate for firstboot?  I think
there is already support in hal for autodetection and
autoconfiguration of locally attached printers that hal can probe for.
, assuming no bugs.  For completeness sake having a pane of firstboot
review the settings and allow you to customize or skip doesn't seem so
bad, but I'm not sure there is a need. Overloading firstboot with too
many steps to encompass too many tweaks also seems wrong.
If you have an attached usb printer on fc3 that wasn't autodetected
and configured maybe we should talk about why it wasn't instead.

And my memory could be wrong and the memory of those whom  I asked
could be wrong.. but browsing of available cups/ipp printers on the
network is on by default already (assuming your firewall is configured
to allow the communication to work, and you haven't encountered a
latent bug in the cups config)

Or are you specifically looking for auto-detection of Windows Network printers?
Thats a bit tougher... and requires samba to be running and properly
configured. Are we going to shove samba configuration into firstboot
as well as a prereq for printer detection/review/configuration  in
firstboot?

-jef

[Jeffrey D. Yuille]

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 19:53 -0500, Jeff Spaleta wrote:

>  On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:49:40 -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille
>  <jeffy5(a)optonline.net&gt; wrote:
>  >       Anyway, this is just a suggestion.  Are there any plans to allow for
>  > the automatic detection and installation of printing in Fedora Core 4 when
>  > it becomes available?   
>  
>  I'm not sure exactly what you want to see thats not being done now. 
>  Having difficulty printing over 'the network'  could be the result of
>  a number of different problems that would have to be solved before
>  printing detection can be done.  So maybe its best to analyze why you
>  are having a problem before we talk about solutions.
>  
>  You want printers on the network to be detected and configured during
>  the install.... as in part of anaconda?  Or do you mean post-install 
>  as part of the functions of firstboot?  Asking anaconda to do this
>  seems wrong to me.  Having this as in firstboot doesn't seem so wrong.
>  
>  But the question i guess is this appropriate for firstboot?  I think
>  there is already support in hal for autodetection and
>  autoconfiguration of locally attached printers that hal can probe for.
>  , assuming no bugs.  For completeness sake having a pane of firstboot
>  review the settings and allow you to customize or skip doesn't seem so
>  bad, but I'm not sure there is a need. Overloading firstboot with too
>  many steps to encompass too many tweaks also seems wrong.
>  If you have an attached usb printer on fc3 that wasn't autodetected
>  and configured maybe we should talk about why it wasn't instead.
>  
>  And my memory could be wrong and the memory of those whom  I asked
>  could be wrong.. but browsing of available cups/ipp printers on the
>  network is on by default already (assuming your firewall is configured
>  to allow the communication to work, and you haven't encountered a
>  latent bug in the cups config)
>  
>  Or are you specifically looking for auto-detection of Windows Network printers?
>  Thats a bit tougher... and requires samba to be running and properly
>  configured. Are we going to shove samba configuration into firstboot
>  as well as a prereq for printer detection/review/configuration  in
>  firstboot?
>  
>  -jef
>  Hello Jeff,  

      Thanks for the response.  I guess there are some other things that
I didn't state in my original post.  When I stated "network", I was
referring to a small home LAN.  Also, my printer (an Epson Stylus C80)
is connected to a parallel port instead of USB.  Thirdly, all of the
computers on the LAN have Fedora Core 3 installed.  I have not problems
printing locally where the printer is installed.  It's when I try to
print from one of the other machines that I am not able to print.  The
client computers can "see" the printer when I am ready to print but for
some reason, I guess that the print jobs are stuck in the queue and will
not print.   Also, I previously had Mandrake Linux 10.1 installed as my
print server (that is, where the printer is attached) and remote
printing worked flawlessly.  I also noticed that in the installation of
Mandrake, the printer with CUPS is installed automatically.  This is why
I was wondering if this could be done in the next iteration of Fedora
Core.  Also, I have firewalls installed by default (SELinux, for
example).  I hope I clarified myself a little bit here, as any help
would be greatly appreciated.

[Tim Waugh]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:17:56AM -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille wrote:

>  The client computers can "see" the printer when I am ready
> to print 
So in other words, it's already automatically detected the remote
printer..

>  but for some reason, I guess that the print jobs are stuck in the
>  queue and will not print. 
This sounds more like a problem on the server side to me.

>  Also, I have firewalls installed by default (SELinux, for
>  example). 
Well, SELinux isn't a firewall, but presuming you have the default
firewall installed that's what you need to change.  You need to allow
inbound TCP port 631 packets on the server.

You also need to configure the queue on the server to be remotely
available, if you haven't done that already (but it sounds as though
you  might have).

Tim.
*/

[Jeffrey D. Yuille]

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 09:52 +0000, Tim Waugh wrote:

>  On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:17:56AM -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille wrote:
>  
>  > The client computers can "see" the printer when I am ready to print
>  
>  So in other words, it's already automatically detected the remote
>  printer..
>  
>  > but for some reason, I guess that the print jobs are stuck in the
>  > queue and will not print.
>  
>  This sounds more like a problem on the server side to me.
>  
>  > Also, I have firewalls installed by default (SELinux, for
>  > example).
>  
>  Well, SELinux isn't a firewall, but presuming you have the default
>  firewall installed that's what you need to change.  You need to allow
>  inbound TCP port 631 packets on the server.
>  
>  You also need to configure the queue on the server to be remotely
>  available, if you haven't done that already (but it sounds as though
>  you  might have).
>  
>  Tim.
>  */ 

Hello Tim, 

      You're right - it is a problem on the service side.  And yes, I
already disabled the firewall on the server side as well.  And the queue
is available remotely, for it can be see whenever I use an application
(for example, Open Office.org or from a browser, "File-Print" ).  As I
also mentioned in a previous response, the printer is connected to the
server through the parallel port.

[Tim Waugh]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 06:24:00AM -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille wrote:

>  > Well, SELinux isn't a firewall, but presuming you have the
> default
>  > firewall installed that's what you need to change.  You need to allow
>  > inbound TCP port 631 packets on the server.
>  > 
>  > You also need to configure the queue on the server to be remotely
>  > available, if you haven't done that already (but it sounds as though
>  > you  might have).
>  > 
>  > Tim.
>  > */
>  
>  
>  Hello Tim, 
>  
>        You're right - it is a problem on the service side.  And yes, I
>  already disabled the firewall on the server side as well.  
Actually I forgot to say that you also need TCP port 631 to be open on
the client I think.

>  And the queue
>  is available remotely, for it can be see whenever I use an application 
No, it doesn't necessarily follow.  You need to make sure that the
sharing properties for the queue has the "This queue is available to
other computers" checkbox checked.

Tim.
*/

[Jef Spaleta]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 11:48:55 +0000, Tim Waugh <twaugh(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Actually I forgot to say that you also need TCP port 631 to be open
> on
>  the client I think. 
I think its the client.  I saw this behavior too at one point, poked a
tcp:631 hole on the firewalls of the clients and I can print from one
fc3 desktop to the other fc3 desktop on the lan.  Would it be possible
to add a ui hook into system-config-printers to poke that hole along
with making 'remote printing' a pre-defined item in
system-config-securitylevel's trust services list?

-jef

[Rodd Clarkson]

>  Actually I forgot to say that you also need TCP port 631 to be open
> on
>  the client I think. 
On a related not (with regard to the client) I've found that you also
need to tell the client to share printer using the printer setup before
CUPS will let the client print.

The wording of the setup makes it look like the sharing is server
related, but I've noticed a couple of times that enabling sharing of
printers on the client (even though no printers are connected to the
client) let's the client print to the server.


Rodd

-- 
> From the pain come the dream
> From the dream come the vision
> From the vision come the people
> From the people come the power
> From this power come the change 
                         - Peter Gabriel

[Joel Juliano]

Firstboot will try to get the most information about how the user
wants the system to be setup. I think enhancing Firstboot will make a
lot of improvements to setting up system-wide changes affecting to all
the users. Firstboot setup will make the system more easier to use,
since they don't have to think about setting up the printers, the
scanners, the ISP, since it's all configured and ready for use using
Firstboot.

Here are the list I believe should be asked in Firstboot.

1. Printers & Scanners
2. Network ISP's for PPPoe (DSL, Broadband)
3. Up2Date/YUM Software Updates
4. Login Preferences (Should you use Facebrowser or Network Login?)
5. People who are going to use the PC. (Login Accounts)
6. Preferred Desktop (What should be default for me? GNOME, KDE or XFCE?)


On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:49:40 -0500, Jeffrey D. Yuille
<jeffy5(a)optonline.net&gt; wrote:
>   Hello Sirs, 
>   
>         I don't know if anyone has suggested this before, but I was curious
>  about something:  in the next release of Fedora Core (FC4), during the
>  installation of Fedora, why can't there be an automatic detection and
>  configuration of printers, just as there are automatic detections of other
>  devices during installation?  I have had difficulty in printing over the
>  network with Fedora Core where the printer is attached to a Fedora Core 3
>  box. I have Googled all over the internet where I have found info about
>  setting up printing with CUPS, however I have not been able to print over a
>  small network.  By the way, I know that printers can be automatically set up
>  in other distributions of Linux (Mandrake, for one) that have allowed me to
>  print wirelessly and though Ethernet over a small network.  
>   
>        Anyway, this is just a suggestion.  Are there any plans to allow for
>  the automatic detection and installation of printing in Fedora Core 4 when
>  it becomes available?   
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