So far I've tried Xubuntu XFCE and Linux Mint Cinnamon. Both nice, I doesn't take long to find the way, but none solved the problem with the printer. In all cases the printer is detected, installed and pops messages for correct operation but no action. A little internet search returned that the latest Ubuntu release has a bug regarding printers' support in general. Version 22.04LTS which is the same for other distro too. Maybe same core, same problem? Zorin Pro is not free. No objection but I don't know if would work for me. Kubuntu, Debian and Manjaro coming next.
Understand where you are coming from but still it is a "just works" OS contrary to Linux. The time one saves with a Mac makes up for the higher cost.
Take a look here. It may help.https://askubuntu.com/questions/1389450/installing-ricoh-sp112-printer-on-ubuntu-20-04
I always had a hard time w/ Ubuntu. Recently I tried MX-21 and love it. Everything seems to work and there is a ton of software built in. With Windows it was a huge chore to get my Sonar Powered Studio interface to work (dac and mic preamps); had to work around a non-supported driver, which worked sometimes. In MX Linux I plugged it in and -BAM- it worked. Just sayin. Printer and scanner works too. https://forum.mxlinux.org/
I use linux on the server side daily for work and I am quite comfortable with the environment. Two years ago I decided I would go full Linux for my desktop as well (I kept a virtual machine with windows because I need Office for work). I started with Debian because it's what I mostly use on the server side. I moved to Manjaro because I wanted more modern stuff, and ended up with Arch. I stayed with Arch for 2 years. Last month I reinstalled W10.
As you said, linux can be quite fun, but it can also be very frustrating. The more streamlined parts are obviously those that touch the server/business aspects of the OS. And then some times they require more knowledge than the average user would have. The rest can be a hit or miss, mostly because they are best-effort by volunteers that work on whatever they fancy, and there is no central guidance or architecture.
Don't get me wrong, I still love linux. But it's the wild west if you get out of the safety of the beaten path. My 65 year-old mother uses her ubuntu/thinkpad merrily for almost a decade, but she barely does anything more than browse or print stuff. But as a specialty or power user, you have to fight with the system every day. It's not rare for stuff to break out of the blue. Debian is rock-solid, but you have to make some sacrifices. Even on commercial software I have seen bugs that have remained unsolved for years because they cannot find what it is (like Greek dead keys not working with KDE and Jetbrains software)
In the end of the day, I have better things to do, so I am back on W10, using linux on VMs
As you said, linux can be quite fun, but it can also be very frustrating. The more streamlined parts are obviously those that touch the server/business aspects of the OS. And then some times they require more knowledge than the average user would have. The rest can be a hit or miss, mostly because they are best-effort by volunteers that work on whatever they fancy, and there is no central guidance or architecture.
Don't get me wrong, I still love linux. But it's the wild west if you get out of the safety of the beaten path. My 65 year-old mother uses her ubuntu/thinkpad merrily for almost a decade, but she barely does anything more than browse or print stuff. But as a specialty or power user, you have to fight with the system every day. It's not rare for stuff to break out of the blue. Debian is rock-solid, but you have to make some sacrifices. Even on commercial software I have seen bugs that have remained unsolved for years because they cannot find what it is (like Greek dead keys not working with KDE and Jetbrains software)
In the end of the day, I have better things to do, so I am back on W10, using linux on VMs
It is Ricoh SP211SU. Ubuntu 22.04LTS recognize it but install drivers for SP212Nw PXL model since the database doesn't have the exact one. That made me follow a workaround.
As this supports older release, I took my chances and downloaded Kubuntu 20.04 to try. It accepts the commands suggested in this link ... and the printer works! 👍
Pretty much what I do!🙂 If I could add DipTrace, I'm done! I installed and configured Wine but it doesn't show up since then. I'm going to try Virtual box together with some more OS suggested. Work for the weekend. I already have a much better insight to all this thanks to you guys!
Keep an eye on virtualbox as well. I had lots of troube with it, especially if you do stuff that use video/hardware acceleration you might get random crashes.
About printers, CUPS was what worked for me in the end. Still, it was one of the things that required too much knowledge than the average user should have. Printers should just work
About printers, CUPS was what worked for me in the end. Still, it was one of the things that required too much knowledge than the average user should have. Printers should just work
I love that OS X just works and leaves me alone. Windoze 10 constantly whines ("Windows Defender has per formed a scan and did not find any threats") and tries to force feed me browsers, search engines, "news", and whatnot.
But we don't all have to like the same stuff. All OSes have their quirks.
Could be a good reason to switch to KiCAD. 🙂 Version 6 is a rather mature piece of software.
I run Windoze in a virtual machine under vmWare Fusion ($50). It works well. An alternative could be to set up a monitor/keyboard-less Windoze machine and Remote Desktop into it. I've been playing with vmWare vSphere (and vmWare/vSphere ESXi) to allow multiple virtual machines to run on the same hardware. That's pretty handy for the couple of little servers I have for administration of my wireless access points and such. vSphere is free (or at least the version I installed was).
After transitioning to KiCAD my need for Windoze is basically limited to a bit of work for clients who insist on using Altium or other Windoze-only applications.
Tom
For some reason DipTrace worked very well for me right from the first touch and now all pcb in my library are designed with this. I need to have it even if I move to something else in the future. Of course I'll try to get it work the easiest way. All suggestions noted, thanks!
Good news with your printer. When you eventually get everything working you should use Timeshift to preserve your data.
The "issue" I think with Linux is initially it was server software which then did a segue to the desktop. There are so many Kernel variants / ports/ forks that no one really knows for sure what works with what which is why there are so many different ways to "work the problem" which, given time and effort one can usually successfully solve.
Kind of reminds me of my early PC days with IRQ's and DMA's and juggling cards to get them all to be a happy family.
Mostly the default things in a modern distribution require no attention. Virtualbox was one of those, and it fits well, but it is no longer a default option in some distributions that I know of, yet it is significant enough to be worthy of updating when available. It tries to be simple and seamless. It has an automatic config program.
I was going through my bash_history... say virtualbox won't run one day, so you run..
sudo /sbin/vboxconfig
..it will tell you that the kernel version has changed and it wants the headers, so install them and run config again..
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo /sbin/vboxconfig
..there is nothing else to do.
Such information is easy to find if you search for it but like many things in linux, it's moments like this where a person's knowledge can be put to the test.
I don't lean on hardware acceleration and if I had to criticise virtualbox, I'd say that drag and drop between the client and host works very well except for moments when it gets flaky.
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There is a PPD file for your printer. Download it and use CUPS to configure the printing system.
Generally in Linux you don't install software by executing a downloaded file as you would in Windows or MacOS. Instead you use the package administration tool the distribution offers. In Debian and Ubuntu it's apt:
sudo apt install skype
There is also a graphical front end for this called "synaptic" if you prefer to avoid the command line.
If you compare the time you need to learn Linux to the time waisted to solve problems on Windows etc. you will see that you save tons of time in the long term. Plus you learn how the computer works instead of messing around with problems...
Generally in Linux you don't install software by executing a downloaded file as you would in Windows or MacOS. Instead you use the package administration tool the distribution offers. In Debian and Ubuntu it's apt:
sudo apt install skype
There is also a graphical front end for this called "synaptic" if you prefer to avoid the command line.
If you compare the time you need to learn Linux to the time waisted to solve problems on Windows etc. you will see that you save tons of time in the long term. Plus you learn how the computer works instead of messing around with problems...
I dare to question if that is really true as Linux problems can be real time eaters like in this thread and what problems with Windows 10/11 exactly? A printer often works out of the box.....certainly this Ricoh printer:
http://support.ricoh.com/bb/html/dr_ut_e/apc/model/sp211su/sp211su.htm
Maybe the reluctance to replace old hardware suitable for the "new" Windows 10 (it came out 29th of July 2015...) is the main reason that the printer does not work? Also some don't want to know how the computer works but they just want to get things done.
Any leftover Dell Optiplex 7020 or higher series pc (I5 preferably, 8 gb RAM minimum) with W10 license included will run the latest W10 version. These are very cheap too. Probably cheaper than the current time loss.
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Using Arch I never had to do something like that. Virtualbox just worked. The only thing that broke the installation was that the extension pack was not updated with the rest of the software, so I had to reinstall it after a major update
Hardware acceleration is a major pain issue on linux. Especially in browsers, And you waste lots of computing power. Combine that with multitasking, experimental support, half-assed compositor support, or even half-assed drivers and it's a recipe for disaster.
Doing lots of work on both servers and client pcs, and working with lots of specialized software, I could not disagree more on that. Not that linux is hard. Most of the problems occur when you are trying to do something weird that you shouldn't be doing in the first place.
On linux, the moment you go off the beaten path it's the wild west. Especially on desktop software. Linux is a no-brainer for server stuff. But for anything desktop related (especially if you run complex workflows and software/hardware) it's a terrible business decision to use linux.
I believe they are trying to ease the updating of the guest extensions. Last I paid attention you could insert a current version virtual CD on the guest system via virtualbox on the host.
Yep that's the guest tools. The extension pack is installed separately and gives things like USB3 support