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Re: Trouble making CUPS work - SOLVED... well, not really

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In article <Pine.LNX.4.64.1103291042390.28907@darkstar.example.net>,
et472@ncf.ca (Michael Black) writes:

> On Tue, 29 Mar 2011, Hal Murray wrote:
>
>>> Even if you don't print lots of paper, it sure is handy to be
>>> able to print an occasional page or two.  The typical example I
>>> encounter is a form to get filled out and snail-mailed to somebody.
>>>
>>> Yes, I occasionally do this myself.  However, the time I've wasted
>>> trying unsuccessfully to get CUPS to work probably exceeds the time
>>> I'll spend moving the bits over to a Windows box for printing over
>>> the next 5 years.  Hopefully by then the CUPS people will get their
>>> act together.  Or maybe I'll be dead.  Whatever...
>>
>> Ah..  But some of us don't have a Windows box to help with printing.
>
> I was going to say that.  For us, there's no "easy" way out, it's fix
> things or do without out.

It's not hard to find an old machine that someone has grown tired of
and replaced, and just about anything has enough power to serve print
images.  But it's another machine to set up, put on a network, etc.
It's not something Eric Raymond's Aunt Tillie could do - although her
12-year-old grandson probably could, not to mention most of us here.
But not everyone is the kind of geek who doesn't mind a roomful of
computers...

> I suspect that impacts on some people's relation to Linux, if they
> don't throw themselves in all the way, they'll remain in limbo
> between Linux and Windows.

Aunt Tillie doesn't want to be "in all the way", she just wants
something that will let her surf the Web and print the pictures
her children e-mail to her.

> I think Charlie knows better, but I'm sure there are lots of people
> who come to Linux for vague reasons but keep using Windows, and they
> likely switch back to Windows at the smallest obstacle, rather than
> overcome the obstacle, simply because they still keep at least one
> foot in Windows.

This is actually sound reasoning.  If you're smart, you don't give
something up until you're sure the replacement fully satisfies your
needs.  If it doesn't, at least you have something to fall back on.

Convenience - especially short-term convenience - is a very powerful
tool for manipulation, and marketroids - at Microsoft and elsewhere -
know this very well.  That's why setting up and running a Linux box
has to be made as convenient as possible (or at least as convenient
as Windows) if Linux is going to capture a significant portion of
the desktop market.  Ubuntu is a big step in the right direction,
but it's not quite there yet.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
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Re: Trouble making CUPS work - SOLVED... well, not really Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2011-03-29 10:44 -0400
  Re: Trouble making CUPS work - SOLVED... well, not really "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2011-03-29 15:10 -0800

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