Backups are never a dumb idea. In today's ransomware world it is a must to keep your critical files safely stored off line. There is no such thing as a safe leg on any network. If one machine on your LAN gets infected, they all are at risk. And, it's not just a Windows problem either. Most of the big hits are on Linux networks. Multiple layers and frequent backups are a necessary evil if you absolutely need to preserve any data. Just as important as backups is a tested and proven recovery plan. Don't assume it will all work unless you actually did a recovery according to your plan. You want to know about any oversights BEFORE you need to do any recovering.
There is talk about making the current 18.04 LTS version of Ubuntu UEFI and nVidia friendly right out of the box. All I can tell you is that I can't install that LTS version on my Widows machine without boogering up Grub. The latest (non LTS) version of Ubuntu, 19.04, on the other hand, has been installed seamlessly on that infamous laptop of mine. So, if you're thinking Ubuntu, start at the 19.04 version for the best of what they have to offer.
Another Win For Linux
Re: Another Win For Linux
I wish I had the time to play with Distro's again. The frau's new computer is still sitting on my other desk, with Windows10 and Linux Mint I think it was that I installed on it. Been so long now I don't even remember, hi hi. I just remember it installed with UEFI intact and working.
I bought the docking station to go through my old IDE drives, I have a whole pile of them, but ran out of time to do that too. I'm sure everything on them is just duplicates, but I would like to see before I erase them.
Speaking of which, I know RAID always required the same size drives, or if they didn't it only worked with the smallest size drive in the array.
I saw an article somewhere on Quora I think it was, a few months ago, that read something like, don't throw away your old IDE drives. I read a little of the article and it appeared to me he was selling a software package to use old IDE drives for mass storage. The program would remember the size of each drive and use them in the most efficient way possible.
It did show you could buy multi-bay HD enclosures for IDE drives Refurbished for 100 to 200 bucks.
I checked places like Amazon and they only have SATA hard drive enclosures now, mainly for building RAID arrays.
I think it would be much cheaper just to use IDE to USB adapters, which is why I bought the IDE/SATA docking station.
The advertising for it was misleading, it can hold 1 IDE drive of either size or 2 Sata drives, plus has all the card slots in the front for various size memory cards.
It does not hold two IDE drives at the same time, which the advertising indicated.
Saw something else on Amazon which caused me to a little bit of look up about it.
The term was Air Gap.
However, everything I read about Air Gap simply means a computer not connected to anything, like my accounting computer.
However, Amazon was selling a device to isolate your computer from the LAN and/or the Internet, while still giving you full access to the Internet.
I just went looking for it again and cannot find it, dang, I wanted to post a link.
What I'm thinking it really is they are selling is like the gas bottles we used on ham radio coax. Only theirs works using an infrared light beam. So the box must convert your data stream to light and back again. I would call this a lightning arrestor or LAN surge protector instead of an air gap. Perhaps that's why I cannot find it again.
I bought the docking station to go through my old IDE drives, I have a whole pile of them, but ran out of time to do that too. I'm sure everything on them is just duplicates, but I would like to see before I erase them.
Speaking of which, I know RAID always required the same size drives, or if they didn't it only worked with the smallest size drive in the array.
I saw an article somewhere on Quora I think it was, a few months ago, that read something like, don't throw away your old IDE drives. I read a little of the article and it appeared to me he was selling a software package to use old IDE drives for mass storage. The program would remember the size of each drive and use them in the most efficient way possible.
It did show you could buy multi-bay HD enclosures for IDE drives Refurbished for 100 to 200 bucks.
I checked places like Amazon and they only have SATA hard drive enclosures now, mainly for building RAID arrays.
I think it would be much cheaper just to use IDE to USB adapters, which is why I bought the IDE/SATA docking station.
The advertising for it was misleading, it can hold 1 IDE drive of either size or 2 Sata drives, plus has all the card slots in the front for various size memory cards.
It does not hold two IDE drives at the same time, which the advertising indicated.
Saw something else on Amazon which caused me to a little bit of look up about it.
The term was Air Gap.
However, everything I read about Air Gap simply means a computer not connected to anything, like my accounting computer.
However, Amazon was selling a device to isolate your computer from the LAN and/or the Internet, while still giving you full access to the Internet.
I just went looking for it again and cannot find it, dang, I wanted to post a link.
What I'm thinking it really is they are selling is like the gas bottles we used on ham radio coax. Only theirs works using an infrared light beam. So the box must convert your data stream to light and back again. I would call this a lightning arrestor or LAN surge protector instead of an air gap. Perhaps that's why I cannot find it again.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I was not familiar with the phrase Air Gap Networking, so I had to look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking)
It turns out that I am familiar with it, but didn't realize it had a name. You are familiar with it too, and in fact I believe you have it implemented in your office. Wiki explains it all eloquently, but I can make it sound more complicated than it actually is. So why not? LOL An air gaped network (or single computer) is one which has no connection to the Internet. It's that simple. If you must transfer data between the air gap system and the Internet, it must be done via a removable memory device. That's it in a nutshell, and the reason why you can't buy an air gap, per se, on Amazon. You can buy the portable drives and memory sticks, but that's not the same as the actual air gap created by the disconnect. So, I guess Amazon can sell air gaped computers, which means they probably don't have a WiFi or Bluetooth capability. Ethernet should be missing as well in a truly air gaped machine. Unfortunately, air gaped networks are vulnerable to various types of malware attacks. This be true for Windws and Linux. As long as there is electronics of any kind, there will be radiation. And, somebody will be clever enough to figure out how to exploit that.
IDE was great in it's time, but it's time has passed. Even if you can construct a box full of IDE drives and make it talk to something more modern, why would you want to? Those drives are old and worn and will not be reliable much longer. They may already be corrupt and physically worn out. Should you really need the data that's on those drives, then it might be worth the struggle. But to think you can get some useful life out of them going forward, is being highly optimistic.
It turns out that I am familiar with it, but didn't realize it had a name. You are familiar with it too, and in fact I believe you have it implemented in your office. Wiki explains it all eloquently, but I can make it sound more complicated than it actually is. So why not? LOL An air gaped network (or single computer) is one which has no connection to the Internet. It's that simple. If you must transfer data between the air gap system and the Internet, it must be done via a removable memory device. That's it in a nutshell, and the reason why you can't buy an air gap, per se, on Amazon. You can buy the portable drives and memory sticks, but that's not the same as the actual air gap created by the disconnect. So, I guess Amazon can sell air gaped computers, which means they probably don't have a WiFi or Bluetooth capability. Ethernet should be missing as well in a truly air gaped machine. Unfortunately, air gaped networks are vulnerable to various types of malware attacks. This be true for Windws and Linux. As long as there is electronics of any kind, there will be radiation. And, somebody will be clever enough to figure out how to exploit that.
IDE was great in it's time, but it's time has passed. Even if you can construct a box full of IDE drives and make it talk to something more modern, why would you want to? Those drives are old and worn and will not be reliable much longer. They may already be corrupt and physically worn out. Should you really need the data that's on those drives, then it might be worth the struggle. But to think you can get some useful life out of them going forward, is being highly optimistic.
Re: Another Win For Linux
You'll find this hard to believe, but I still have some 100 meg HDs that still work, a few 1 gig drives also. They don't hold enough to mess with for anything. But all the 250 to 500 gig IDE drives I have here all work great, never had a problem with them.
I do have a concern about these big 2 to 4 terrabyte drives though. To get that much data on a HD, the sectors have to be very small in size physically. Seems to me, temperature would be a huge factor in them working properly, meaning the heads landing on the right sectors.
When we had that huge 3 foot square Wang Hard Drive, we had to maintain a constant 72 degrees in the computer room to ensure against data loss, and those platters were HUGE.
Now that they have platter size down to 2 inches and 4 terrabytes, it seems temperature would be most important now.
But apparently it's not, else laptops with big drives being used indoors and out throughout the year would lose data, and they don't seem to.
Even before the Internet, but after LANs became popular, a company I worked for always had to load data reels for us to get to data we needed. I guess they did not have much storage space in the old days of using tape cabinets. And of course I was the one who was always told to update an older file. We had books that told us what reel held each set of data. Some of it was by dates, and some by topic but still within a given year.
My first two years there I had to phone down to the data center to request they place a reel for me.
Then it became a little easier when all I had to do was send a request from the computer and they would know to pull one reel and add the one I requested. It worked sorta like requesting an URL from a website, only with a ten to twenty minute wait for the page to appear, hi hi.
Of all the computers in the office, only one had 8 inch drives, and not at all like the 8 inch floppy drives on home or business computers. These used a large 10 inch square plastic housing with a sliding cover I think. You placed the whole thing in the drive and it would open the case and record or read the data, on one side of the disk only. I only saw them, never had to use that computer for anything. The only thing I do remember is the person who did use it to make copies did so to take the disk downtown to a company who did plotted charts. We had our own blu-ray machines for blueprints.
The LISA computer we had at the flower shop used regular 8 inch floppies. Then we got the Wang VS 300 which backed up to a second set of platters inside the top of the HD cabinet. Those were stored in a fireproof cabinet. Pain in the arse to use also, because the handles often broke off the top of the platters. They were replaceable, but even so, one could damage a whole set of platters if that handle broke while moving them to or from the cabinet.
I do have a concern about these big 2 to 4 terrabyte drives though. To get that much data on a HD, the sectors have to be very small in size physically. Seems to me, temperature would be a huge factor in them working properly, meaning the heads landing on the right sectors.
When we had that huge 3 foot square Wang Hard Drive, we had to maintain a constant 72 degrees in the computer room to ensure against data loss, and those platters were HUGE.
Now that they have platter size down to 2 inches and 4 terrabytes, it seems temperature would be most important now.
But apparently it's not, else laptops with big drives being used indoors and out throughout the year would lose data, and they don't seem to.
Even before the Internet, but after LANs became popular, a company I worked for always had to load data reels for us to get to data we needed. I guess they did not have much storage space in the old days of using tape cabinets. And of course I was the one who was always told to update an older file. We had books that told us what reel held each set of data. Some of it was by dates, and some by topic but still within a given year.
My first two years there I had to phone down to the data center to request they place a reel for me.
Then it became a little easier when all I had to do was send a request from the computer and they would know to pull one reel and add the one I requested. It worked sorta like requesting an URL from a website, only with a ten to twenty minute wait for the page to appear, hi hi.
Of all the computers in the office, only one had 8 inch drives, and not at all like the 8 inch floppy drives on home or business computers. These used a large 10 inch square plastic housing with a sliding cover I think. You placed the whole thing in the drive and it would open the case and record or read the data, on one side of the disk only. I only saw them, never had to use that computer for anything. The only thing I do remember is the person who did use it to make copies did so to take the disk downtown to a company who did plotted charts. We had our own blu-ray machines for blueprints.
The LISA computer we had at the flower shop used regular 8 inch floppies. Then we got the Wang VS 300 which backed up to a second set of platters inside the top of the HD cabinet. Those were stored in a fireproof cabinet. Pain in the arse to use also, because the handles often broke off the top of the platters. They were replaceable, but even so, one could damage a whole set of platters if that handle broke while moving them to or from the cabinet.
Re: Another Win For Linux
Like everything else hard drives have a physical limit which imposes a digital limit as well. I don't know much about the technology involved but you are correct in observing that temperature is not a big issue. The recording tracks can only be so narrow so that I think the increased storage capacity has to do with multiple disks and smaller magnetic dots. A lot of devices these days don't have a hard drive option. It's all going solid state if it has a drive at all.
If you want to think of something mind blowing, try to imagine what kind of stepper motor is required to position the heads on those high capacity drives. The increments must be microscopic.
If you want to think of something mind blowing, try to imagine what kind of stepper motor is required to position the heads on those high capacity drives. The increments must be microscopic.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I hear ya Yogi, hi hi.
You know how long they bragged CFR would last, but they didn't.
Then they brag about how long LEDs will last, but don't.
Solid State drives can only be written to so many times.
So drive intensive applications will wear them out long before they should be.
I sorta doubt SSD will last as long as the old platters have in number of reads and writes.
They may be 100 times faster, but they may die 100 times faster too.
I put a lot of data on CDs for safe storage, only to find out CDs ROT.
That thin metal film on the plastic disk is very susceptible to humidity and corrode rapidly.
Not the permanent solution they said they were. Except for the CDs totally encased in plastic, which are hard to find.
You know how long they bragged CFR would last, but they didn't.
Then they brag about how long LEDs will last, but don't.
Solid State drives can only be written to so many times.
So drive intensive applications will wear them out long before they should be.
I sorta doubt SSD will last as long as the old platters have in number of reads and writes.
They may be 100 times faster, but they may die 100 times faster too.
I put a lot of data on CDs for safe storage, only to find out CDs ROT.
That thin metal film on the plastic disk is very susceptible to humidity and corrode rapidly.
Not the permanent solution they said they were. Except for the CDs totally encased in plastic, which are hard to find.
Re: Another Win For Linux
People working in IT know there is no such thing as permanent storage. The data has to be moved to fresh storage media from time to time or it risks being lost. The term "permanent storage" is best applied to hard drives, but it's not permanent there either. If you ever get those IDE drives going again, you may find out exactly how permanent that media is. I use a program called Crystal Disk Info. I've not seen anything similar in Linux, but it's probably present there too. All it does is read the various stats off your hard drive so that you can tell when something is starting to deteriorate. At the last reading (a few minutes ago) the SSD I'm using to write this had 32.131 TB writes to it over a period of 23, 529 hours of on time. Overall it gets a 96% good rating by the software, i.e., I've only used 4% of it's useful life time. The error rates and relocated sectors for the two hard drives are higher than what I see for the SSD. In other words, the SSD is in great shape after a lot of usage. Back when the technology was first introduced things weren't as good. In today's world SSD's have no trouble keeping up with HDD storage, and I'm guessing mine will outlast the traditional drives.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I've had sectors go bad on some of the really old HDs. But I didn't lose any data. Apparently when a sector does start going bad the data is moved to a sector that is still strong.
I read somewhere that both ext3 and ext4 write to the least used sectors, and in doing so are continually moving data around. But since I keep all of my drives NTFS, or used to until the ransomware attack, I don't know how Windows does it, since all of their files are like daisy chains, which is why NTFS needs defragmented.
We have a way to check drives and it shows a lot of info including drive health, etc.
Even so, they never know if a motor is going to fry or a platter flake apart.
So far I've had excellent luck with my little SD cards. One of them gets used a heck of a lot too, because my HP laser printer with scanner cannot write to the computer. I have to stick and SD card into the USB slot on the front and copy to it, then move the SD card to the computer to get the data onto the computer.
On the bright side, all the scanning software is built into the printer, and it will scan and save to USB even if the printer is not connected to a computer or to a LAN. This is what I'm using the new computer that don't print right for, and using the newest one for printing.
I read somewhere that both ext3 and ext4 write to the least used sectors, and in doing so are continually moving data around. But since I keep all of my drives NTFS, or used to until the ransomware attack, I don't know how Windows does it, since all of their files are like daisy chains, which is why NTFS needs defragmented.
We have a way to check drives and it shows a lot of info including drive health, etc.
Even so, they never know if a motor is going to fry or a platter flake apart.
So far I've had excellent luck with my little SD cards. One of them gets used a heck of a lot too, because my HP laser printer with scanner cannot write to the computer. I have to stick and SD card into the USB slot on the front and copy to it, then move the SD card to the computer to get the data onto the computer.
On the bright side, all the scanning software is built into the printer, and it will scan and save to USB even if the printer is not connected to a computer or to a LAN. This is what I'm using the new computer that don't print right for, and using the newest one for printing.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I alluded to my HP Printer problems in another post. I'll briefly touch on them here in that they are relevant to the discussion.
One of the pieces of software in the printer has to do with scanning in the OCR mode. That be Optical Character Recognition wherein you can scan an image and extract the text therein to a text file or spreadsheet. It comes in handy for me when I copy recipes from a magazine and want to edit them a bit. The OCR part of the software is made by a company called IRIS and they sell it stand alone for about the same price I paid for the whole printer. HP took a piece of it and attached it to their scanner mode thus integrating the scanner and OCR software into one task. Once the scan is made it can be cropped and sent to a file for further processing. I can send that scanned document file in .rtf format to the local memory on the printer exactly as you do. But I don't do that. I have a choice of also sending it to a network drive (my NAS) or an arbitrary folder on my desktop.
Yesterday I noticed that I could no longer save that OCR scan to my desktop folder, but could save scanned files other than .rtf format to the NAS. The program would go through the entire routine of scanning, letting me crop the preview image, pick a place to save it, but give an error message when I hit the save button. For some reason yet unknown to me, the software for making the .rtf file was failing. It would no longer save to the desktop. There is a Windows service for that, but the service seems to be working well.
My weapon of choice was to go to the HP Customer Support site for help. I should have known better from my past experiences with them, but I downloaded a new driver which they claim was updated in March of this year. There were no updates for four years prior. There were no explanations about the late update other than "fixed various problems" standard blurb. So I downloaded and installed and ... nothing happened. It was more like a quick patch than a new software install. At that point I decided to purge the system entirely of anything with the HP name on it. Then I installed the new and improved dlrivers again. This time it actually unpacked the file and did some progress bar displaying. It did all that but did not fix any problems. I had a copy of the prior update, so I purged HP once again and installed the prior version. No change. This was now getting very suspicious. It did work at one time. So I dug out the CD that came with the printer originally only to make matters worse. I did one more purge and installed the latest update package which took away about half the functionality of the printer. In my frustration I did what I was told should not be done, i.e. install HP software on top of an existing installation of HP software. I installed the CD version on top of the 2019 version and voila. It's all working now.
I could be a special case, but I doubt it. HP in it's inimical style wrote software that is buggy as hell and did not give any installation instructions other than press the Install button. The printer is really fantastic when the software is working. There is a whole web version of all this that I didn't get into. I can do a lot of the print tasks from my clever phone with the right extension installed there. This printer is truly amazing, when the software isn't corrupt.
One of the pieces of software in the printer has to do with scanning in the OCR mode. That be Optical Character Recognition wherein you can scan an image and extract the text therein to a text file or spreadsheet. It comes in handy for me when I copy recipes from a magazine and want to edit them a bit. The OCR part of the software is made by a company called IRIS and they sell it stand alone for about the same price I paid for the whole printer. HP took a piece of it and attached it to their scanner mode thus integrating the scanner and OCR software into one task. Once the scan is made it can be cropped and sent to a file for further processing. I can send that scanned document file in .rtf format to the local memory on the printer exactly as you do. But I don't do that. I have a choice of also sending it to a network drive (my NAS) or an arbitrary folder on my desktop.
Yesterday I noticed that I could no longer save that OCR scan to my desktop folder, but could save scanned files other than .rtf format to the NAS. The program would go through the entire routine of scanning, letting me crop the preview image, pick a place to save it, but give an error message when I hit the save button. For some reason yet unknown to me, the software for making the .rtf file was failing. It would no longer save to the desktop. There is a Windows service for that, but the service seems to be working well.
My weapon of choice was to go to the HP Customer Support site for help. I should have known better from my past experiences with them, but I downloaded a new driver which they claim was updated in March of this year. There were no updates for four years prior. There were no explanations about the late update other than "fixed various problems" standard blurb. So I downloaded and installed and ... nothing happened. It was more like a quick patch than a new software install. At that point I decided to purge the system entirely of anything with the HP name on it. Then I installed the new and improved dlrivers again. This time it actually unpacked the file and did some progress bar displaying. It did all that but did not fix any problems. I had a copy of the prior update, so I purged HP once again and installed the prior version. No change. This was now getting very suspicious. It did work at one time. So I dug out the CD that came with the printer originally only to make matters worse. I did one more purge and installed the latest update package which took away about half the functionality of the printer. In my frustration I did what I was told should not be done, i.e. install HP software on top of an existing installation of HP software. I installed the CD version on top of the 2019 version and voila. It's all working now.
I could be a special case, but I doubt it. HP in it's inimical style wrote software that is buggy as hell and did not give any installation instructions other than press the Install button. The printer is really fantastic when the software is working. There is a whole web version of all this that I didn't get into. I can do a lot of the print tasks from my clever phone with the right extension installed there. This printer is truly amazing, when the software isn't corrupt.
Re: Another Win For Linux
It could be Windoze also, they keep sending up updates. I leave the frau's Win10 computer up here running, and it seems every couple of days it sends out a new update and reboots the computer.
The two things I was still using it for suddenly stopped working.
I haven't had time to try and figure out why, but it's no biggie since I have a Linux computer that does what I had it doing.
Although I'm still mad at HP for sending me a defective printer I'm still stuck with, the new one seems to work fairly well, but it can't do a couple of simple things the other one did, which has nothing to do with the duplexer.
I found a painstaking workaround for one of the problems which works OK.
One feature where you save a file after you set up the printer to print a page a certain way, then save it so it prints that way the next time, only works on some documents, not all of them.
It may keep the selection like for Envelope size and orientation, but changes the speed from Envelope back to Plain Paper, so the toner rubs off the envelope. I just have to remember to check to see if it picked up the right settings before printing on envelopes. In the original printer that didn't work right, it did remember all the settings, but on this newest one, it always forgets the speed setting. Plus they have this LONG totally useless selection list for paper types, with no documentation about what each setting does. I know all they do is adjust the speed of the paper through the machine so the toner gets fused properly. Looks like a gimmick to sell HP branded papers, hi hi.
The two things I was still using it for suddenly stopped working.
I haven't had time to try and figure out why, but it's no biggie since I have a Linux computer that does what I had it doing.
Although I'm still mad at HP for sending me a defective printer I'm still stuck with, the new one seems to work fairly well, but it can't do a couple of simple things the other one did, which has nothing to do with the duplexer.
I found a painstaking workaround for one of the problems which works OK.
One feature where you save a file after you set up the printer to print a page a certain way, then save it so it prints that way the next time, only works on some documents, not all of them.
It may keep the selection like for Envelope size and orientation, but changes the speed from Envelope back to Plain Paper, so the toner rubs off the envelope. I just have to remember to check to see if it picked up the right settings before printing on envelopes. In the original printer that didn't work right, it did remember all the settings, but on this newest one, it always forgets the speed setting. Plus they have this LONG totally useless selection list for paper types, with no documentation about what each setting does. I know all they do is adjust the speed of the paper through the machine so the toner gets fused properly. Looks like a gimmick to sell HP branded papers, hi hi.
Re: Another Win For Linux
Reading about your HP experiences I get the impression you and I are suffering from the same problem. HP makes fabulous printers in terms of the mechanics. They are no longer the best, but there is no doubt in my mind that HP has a lot of great mechanical engineers working for them. Most, if not all, the failures you describe here are software related. It so happens the software is used to drive the mechanics and the software is what makes the printer malfunction. All you and I see is a print job that fails.
Both Windows and Linux have generic print drivers that the OS tries to use if there is no OEM software installed for the particular hardware device. HP goes out of it's way to respond to customer needs and most of the bells and whistles that come with any printer are software enabled. When writing drivers for Linux, some of those bells and whistles are not present simply because the developers never put them in. They are always there in Windows, but they don't always work as advertised. That is where HP sucks big time. They can't seem to figure out how to write user friendly software that works reliably. It's been my experience with HP that every change, patch, or update intended for their printers breaks the software that is already installed. The fix is to remove all the drivers, config files, temp directories, registry entries, and anything that has Hewlett Packard's signature on it first. Then the upgrades will install and work correctly. HP is unique in that regard when it comes to software. All others will either patch in properly or do the uninstall first automatically.
You are correct to say HP wants you to use their consumables. Almost all printer makers build their machines to do that. HP seems to have gone out of their way, however, to force people into buying HP ink. This is a known tactic used to generate profit from printers they may have to sell at or below cost in order to get people to buy them. Well, this forced use has raised the ire of several organizations and an entire continent, Europe. So, now when you go to the HP download site, and ONLY when you go to their download site, they offer a patch you can install to disable their lock on what inks you must use. Of course they still warn you that anybody else's ink will likely be the cause of WW III, but at least now you can make a choice; if you know where the patch is and actually install it.
Both Windows and Linux have generic print drivers that the OS tries to use if there is no OEM software installed for the particular hardware device. HP goes out of it's way to respond to customer needs and most of the bells and whistles that come with any printer are software enabled. When writing drivers for Linux, some of those bells and whistles are not present simply because the developers never put them in. They are always there in Windows, but they don't always work as advertised. That is where HP sucks big time. They can't seem to figure out how to write user friendly software that works reliably. It's been my experience with HP that every change, patch, or update intended for their printers breaks the software that is already installed. The fix is to remove all the drivers, config files, temp directories, registry entries, and anything that has Hewlett Packard's signature on it first. Then the upgrades will install and work correctly. HP is unique in that regard when it comes to software. All others will either patch in properly or do the uninstall first automatically.
You are correct to say HP wants you to use their consumables. Almost all printer makers build their machines to do that. HP seems to have gone out of their way, however, to force people into buying HP ink. This is a known tactic used to generate profit from printers they may have to sell at or below cost in order to get people to buy them. Well, this forced use has raised the ire of several organizations and an entire continent, Europe. So, now when you go to the HP download site, and ONLY when you go to their download site, they offer a patch you can install to disable their lock on what inks you must use. Of course they still warn you that anybody else's ink will likely be the cause of WW III, but at least now you can make a choice; if you know where the patch is and actually install it.
Re: Another Win For Linux
My printer that is BAD from the git go, cannot even print out its own test pages properly, so it has nothing to do with what computer drivers are in use.
Also, the problem here is, if you don't know what the test page is supposed to show and how, you don't necessarily know it is incorrect. It wasn't until I got the new printer that I knew what the test page was supposed to look like, and by then the warranty was out on the first one I bought.
Plus, there are differences in the internals between the two as well. The duplexer on the first unit was not just an add-on to the back of the printer. The internals are also different. Which is why the one with the duplexer could print on 3x5 paper in both portrait and landscape modes with the paper fed narrow end first. But the new one cannot print on 3x5 paper with the narrow end first in either mode. And of course neither could print with the wide edge in first.
My old Konica-Minolta could print on paper as small as 2 inches by 4 inches without the paper getting lost inside. It could print on 2 by 3-1/2 but it wouldn't register right, so I bought 2 x 4 cardstock to print business cards then cut off the leading 1/2 inch. That being said, if I was actually printing business cards, I would use full-size sheets of cardstock and cut them out.
I wish I still had my little POS ribbon printer. I used it for years to cancel checks for deposit, and a few times to print out the info on checks for me, even the small personal size checks came out perfect every time.
FWIW it ran on the serial port of old computers that could sent raw data to dot matrix printers. Never needed a driver per se. It worked on my Apple computers, my first few PCs both 286 and 386. On the 386 it only needed 3 wires connected to the serial port to print properly, from a plain text file that is. It could not print from Windows WRITE or any other graphical style word processor, had to be a text file, like from the early Notepad.
When that computer died, and serial ports fell by the wayside, I never found a way to make it work with any later printers.
All the rest on the market these days are thermal receipt printers, and a true check printer like grocery stores use to write your check for you is outlandishly expensive.
Also, the problem here is, if you don't know what the test page is supposed to show and how, you don't necessarily know it is incorrect. It wasn't until I got the new printer that I knew what the test page was supposed to look like, and by then the warranty was out on the first one I bought.
Plus, there are differences in the internals between the two as well. The duplexer on the first unit was not just an add-on to the back of the printer. The internals are also different. Which is why the one with the duplexer could print on 3x5 paper in both portrait and landscape modes with the paper fed narrow end first. But the new one cannot print on 3x5 paper with the narrow end first in either mode. And of course neither could print with the wide edge in first.
My old Konica-Minolta could print on paper as small as 2 inches by 4 inches without the paper getting lost inside. It could print on 2 by 3-1/2 but it wouldn't register right, so I bought 2 x 4 cardstock to print business cards then cut off the leading 1/2 inch. That being said, if I was actually printing business cards, I would use full-size sheets of cardstock and cut them out.
I wish I still had my little POS ribbon printer. I used it for years to cancel checks for deposit, and a few times to print out the info on checks for me, even the small personal size checks came out perfect every time.
FWIW it ran on the serial port of old computers that could sent raw data to dot matrix printers. Never needed a driver per se. It worked on my Apple computers, my first few PCs both 286 and 386. On the 386 it only needed 3 wires connected to the serial port to print properly, from a plain text file that is. It could not print from Windows WRITE or any other graphical style word processor, had to be a text file, like from the early Notepad.
When that computer died, and serial ports fell by the wayside, I never found a way to make it work with any later printers.
All the rest on the market these days are thermal receipt printers, and a true check printer like grocery stores use to write your check for you is outlandishly expensive.
Re: Another Win For Linux
Avery has any kind of label you can think of, including business cards. A long long time ago I got a box of Avery business card stock which was the standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheet size. Also, Avery has a free program to print onto all those various kinds of labels they sell. They even have a web version of the program if you don't want to download anything. I've done some marvelous business cards and CD/DVD labels using their software. I'm impressed. But then I don't have the critical eye, or needs, that you do. So I am perfectly happy with good and don't need excellent printing.
All the HP printers I've owned had duplexers installed and could accept any size envelop, paper, or label. The software to print on these things is elusive, but the printer is indeed what they call it: all in one. The only thing I can't find readily available is a personal size check printer program. I had a hand held dot matrix printer dedicated to this kind of printing many years ago. I used it until the company went out of business and I could not buy ribbons for it anymore. I don't write than many checks now and do them by hand, but it would be nice if I could find a program for my HP printer to easily print personal checks.
All the HP printers I've owned had duplexers installed and could accept any size envelop, paper, or label. The software to print on these things is elusive, but the printer is indeed what they call it: all in one. The only thing I can't find readily available is a personal size check printer program. I had a hand held dot matrix printer dedicated to this kind of printing many years ago. I used it until the company went out of business and I could not buy ribbons for it anymore. I don't write than many checks now and do them by hand, but it would be nice if I could find a program for my HP printer to easily print personal checks.
Re: Another Win For Linux
The HP M477fdn could print on business size checks, feeding them narrow end first and using the document in landscape mode. The HP M477fnw cannot print on standard size business check, not even in portrait mode. Paper Jamb, even though it's not really jambed, just ran out of feeding length at any setting.
However, I came up with a way to print my checks, any size check, in landscape mode but feeding the narrow end first.
I created a form style document with boxes where I put the date, who the check is made out to, the numerical amount box, and the line where you write out the amount, plus the box at the bottom for the reason the check was written.
The document itself is a #10 size envelope set in landscape mode to facilitate writing the check.
I had to move my little boxes on the Form to get them in just the right places to print in the proper areas of the check.
Now for the printing. I use a #10 size envelope with a window cut out on the face of the envelope.
The cut out opening is 1-7/8 inches high, starting 3/8 inch from the right and 1/2 inch up from the bottom, and cut all the way to the left end of the envelope. I have a little piece of magic mending tape diagonally on the lower right corner of the envelope so it doesn't curl or wear out right away. Without that piece of tape on the corner, I can only do about 10 checks before that corner gets bummed up. With the tape on that corner, I've printed well over 100 checks using the same envelope. The left side of the envelope is cut off about 1/16 inch in to prevent wrinkles in the end of the envelope.
So far, this method has worked great for my business size checks, and I have done something similar for the little personal size checks still using a #10 size envelope, because the little 6 inch envelopes don't hold up.
All of that being said, don't use the mylar folded check writing you can buy for ink jets in a laser printer, they melt.
Before I started using the envelopes, I used check writing pouch for lasers. Because they just fold over the check and the folded end is fed into the printer, the printer often unfolds them inside the printer causing a jamb and a damaged check.
The #10 Envelope works the best, although a pain to slip a check in and out of.
However, I came up with a way to print my checks, any size check, in landscape mode but feeding the narrow end first.
I created a form style document with boxes where I put the date, who the check is made out to, the numerical amount box, and the line where you write out the amount, plus the box at the bottom for the reason the check was written.
The document itself is a #10 size envelope set in landscape mode to facilitate writing the check.
I had to move my little boxes on the Form to get them in just the right places to print in the proper areas of the check.
Now for the printing. I use a #10 size envelope with a window cut out on the face of the envelope.
The cut out opening is 1-7/8 inches high, starting 3/8 inch from the right and 1/2 inch up from the bottom, and cut all the way to the left end of the envelope. I have a little piece of magic mending tape diagonally on the lower right corner of the envelope so it doesn't curl or wear out right away. Without that piece of tape on the corner, I can only do about 10 checks before that corner gets bummed up. With the tape on that corner, I've printed well over 100 checks using the same envelope. The left side of the envelope is cut off about 1/16 inch in to prevent wrinkles in the end of the envelope.
So far, this method has worked great for my business size checks, and I have done something similar for the little personal size checks still using a #10 size envelope, because the little 6 inch envelopes don't hold up.
All of that being said, don't use the mylar folded check writing you can buy for ink jets in a laser printer, they melt.
Before I started using the envelopes, I used check writing pouch for lasers. Because they just fold over the check and the folded end is fed into the printer, the printer often unfolds them inside the printer causing a jamb and a damaged check.
The #10 Envelope works the best, although a pain to slip a check in and out of.
Re: Another Win For Linux
At one time I cut one side of a manila file folder to the size of a standard sheet of paper. My idea was to cut four diagonal slits into it at the corners of the check. I inserted the check into the slits so that it fed into the printer as if it were photo paper or some such thing. Then it all became a matter of manipulating cells and text boxes in a spreadsheet in order to align the text where I wanted it. It took a lot of manipulation to get the text fields where they had to be and my ink jet printer de jour printed out the faux checks about as perfectly as I could expect. Unfortunately real checks didn't always get fed through correctly and I lost a few that way. It also became a time consuming task setting up each check with new text and numbers. So, I gave up on that idea.
Libre Office has an envelope template built into the software. I played with that for many hours and still could not control the output twice in a row. They seemed to have wanted a letter to go along with the envelope and I never did find out how to print only the envelope. So, now and days, I write about six checks a month. I do it by hand printing. Works just fine.
Libre Office has an envelope template built into the software. I played with that for many hours and still could not control the output twice in a row. They seemed to have wanted a letter to go along with the envelope and I never did find out how to print only the envelope. So, now and days, I write about six checks a month. I do it by hand printing. Works just fine.
Re: Another Win For Linux
My hands now shake to much to write much of anything by hand and have it come out legible.
Some days I can write by hand easily for about a span of two hours, then it's back to gibberish again.
Hmm, almost all ink jet printers can handle paper as small as 2 inch by 3 inch, fed from the 2 inch side.
I have an ink jet here I was using for cancelling checks, and writing them too, until the ink cartridge ran out.
Bought a new black cartridge but it won't print with the color cartridge empty.
I managed to convince the machine I put a new color cartridge in it, but only got by with this one time, hi hi.
My frau bought an ink jet solely for doing photographs. The cartridges for it are expensive too.
And so far, she has never got more than four pictures out of it before the cartridges dried out on her.
I gave her a little USB stick to put what pictures she wanted printed on, to take to WalMart and use their machines.
Pictures always turn out great and only cost a few cents each.
I turned the document I use to write checks into a Form after it was all aligned the way I wanted it.
So now all I have to do is hit the Tab Key to jump from box to box, which is fast and simple to do.
But you do have to have all the boxes moved exactly right before you create the Form because then it is no longer editable as far as where the boxes are.
Some days I can write by hand easily for about a span of two hours, then it's back to gibberish again.
Hmm, almost all ink jet printers can handle paper as small as 2 inch by 3 inch, fed from the 2 inch side.
I have an ink jet here I was using for cancelling checks, and writing them too, until the ink cartridge ran out.
Bought a new black cartridge but it won't print with the color cartridge empty.
I managed to convince the machine I put a new color cartridge in it, but only got by with this one time, hi hi.
My frau bought an ink jet solely for doing photographs. The cartridges for it are expensive too.
And so far, she has never got more than four pictures out of it before the cartridges dried out on her.
I gave her a little USB stick to put what pictures she wanted printed on, to take to WalMart and use their machines.
Pictures always turn out great and only cost a few cents each.
I turned the document I use to write checks into a Form after it was all aligned the way I wanted it.
So now all I have to do is hit the Tab Key to jump from box to box, which is fast and simple to do.
But you do have to have all the boxes moved exactly right before you create the Form because then it is no longer editable as far as where the boxes are.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I've seen a lot of businesses cancel checks using a rubber stamp and ink pad. I have to wonder why you used a printer to do the same thing.
There was a time in my Windows 98 days when I did a lot of printing of digital pictures I took. The ink wasn't so expensive back then but it was still pricey. High gloss photo paper probably cost more than the ink. The problem with ink jet printed photos is that they don't last long. The ink is water soluble and smears easily. The main reason I stopped printing photographs is that I rarely looked at them and nobody else cared about what I was photographing. So now it's all digital albums. I was able to get a lot more than four pictures out of my printer. I think I was using the Canon at the time after I gave up on the laser printer I had from HP.
There was a time in my Windows 98 days when I did a lot of printing of digital pictures I took. The ink wasn't so expensive back then but it was still pricey. High gloss photo paper probably cost more than the ink. The problem with ink jet printed photos is that they don't last long. The ink is water soluble and smears easily. The main reason I stopped printing photographs is that I rarely looked at them and nobody else cared about what I was photographing. So now it's all digital albums. I was able to get a lot more than four pictures out of my printer. I think I was using the Canon at the time after I gave up on the laser printer I had from HP.
Re: Another Win For Linux
The only reason she only gets about 4 pictures is because that's all she prints, and then the next time she wants to print out some the ink cartridges have dried out.
The Lexmark printers I had used indelible ink. You could wash the color print under running water and it wouldn't fade.
I also bought Clay Impregnated Paper, instead of the plastic or gel coated papers.
If you want to use glossy paper in a laser printer, better make sure it is Clay impregnated and not plastic coated, hi hi.
I think the idea behind the gel coated papers for ink jet photo printing was to cause the colors to bleed ever so slightly to give the appearance of a quality photograph. But gel papers are not waterproof either and do fade, just not as quickly.
They do make rich looking photographs though.
If I need some really good long lasting prints from digital, when I lived in St. Louis, I would drive down to Schillers to have prints made. So I don't confuse you here, they used Lasers, but NOT Laser Printers.
The machine worked sorta like a laser printer except it shined light onto regular photo print paper which had to be developed like prints from a film onto paper print. In other words you ended up with a real photograph on photographic paper.
Before I moved south, they were still able to take digital images and create slides for a slide projector from them. I doubt if they do that now though, who has slide projectors anymore.
I've had good luck using the WalMart photo print machines. Although they are ink jet, they seem to be waterproof and almost impossible to tell from a real photo. And the best part, they are cheap.
I do know the last time I was in, instead of having six machines lined up side by side like before, they now only have two. So I guess not so many people are getting prints made anymore. Also the price is a little higher than the last time I got prints myself. I like to have the cover of my books as a photograph in a frame to hang on the wall.
The Lexmark printers I had used indelible ink. You could wash the color print under running water and it wouldn't fade.
I also bought Clay Impregnated Paper, instead of the plastic or gel coated papers.
If you want to use glossy paper in a laser printer, better make sure it is Clay impregnated and not plastic coated, hi hi.
I think the idea behind the gel coated papers for ink jet photo printing was to cause the colors to bleed ever so slightly to give the appearance of a quality photograph. But gel papers are not waterproof either and do fade, just not as quickly.
They do make rich looking photographs though.
If I need some really good long lasting prints from digital, when I lived in St. Louis, I would drive down to Schillers to have prints made. So I don't confuse you here, they used Lasers, but NOT Laser Printers.
The machine worked sorta like a laser printer except it shined light onto regular photo print paper which had to be developed like prints from a film onto paper print. In other words you ended up with a real photograph on photographic paper.
Before I moved south, they were still able to take digital images and create slides for a slide projector from them. I doubt if they do that now though, who has slide projectors anymore.
I've had good luck using the WalMart photo print machines. Although they are ink jet, they seem to be waterproof and almost impossible to tell from a real photo. And the best part, they are cheap.
I do know the last time I was in, instead of having six machines lined up side by side like before, they now only have two. So I guess not so many people are getting prints made anymore. Also the price is a little higher than the last time I got prints myself. I like to have the cover of my books as a photograph in a frame to hang on the wall.
Re: Another Win For Linux
I've not knowingly had problems with ink cartridges drying out. I have had problems with ink drying on the print head and thus deteriorating the quality of the printing. That's the main reason I got rid of the Cannon printer. After replacing two print heads because I could not clean them, I decided to go back to HP. I read a blog shortly after I got the new printer, and the author had the same problems with his Canon printer. He described how he cleaned the print heads by soaking it in WD-40 for a day or two. He claimed things worked perfectly after that. I suppose a liter of WD-40 would be cheaper than new print heads, but I never thought of doing that. Now I pay an arm an leg for HP ink that does not clog the print heads.
You want to know who STILL has a slide projector? <raises hand> The problem with my slide projector is that the bulb is burned out. Try and get one of those in 2019. Impossible.
I can understand wanting to have your book covers framed. I wish I had some books I wrote so that I too could frame the cover. But, I would want to frame the actual cover and not a photo of the artwork used to produce it. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
You want to know who STILL has a slide projector? <raises hand> The problem with my slide projector is that the bulb is burned out. Try and get one of those in 2019. Impossible.
I can understand wanting to have your book covers framed. I wish I had some books I wrote so that I too could frame the cover. But, I would want to frame the actual cover and not a photo of the artwork used to produce it. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Re: Another Win For Linux
Not wanting to destroy a book, I have the first print published book off the press in a shadowbox type picture frame, with the cover facing out.
It is signed and dated, plus says first off the press.
If I ever get famous (which is doubtful) it could be worth a lot of money some day.
Most of my short-stories are only available in electronic form, so I needed photographic prints in order to frame them, hi hi.
It is signed and dated, plus says first off the press.
If I ever get famous (which is doubtful) it could be worth a lot of money some day.
Most of my short-stories are only available in electronic form, so I needed photographic prints in order to frame them, hi hi.