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Linux Software

HP Print Server Uses Linux, But Doesn't Support It? 218

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isnt-it-ironic-doncha-think? dept.
Spyky writes: "A fairly new product from HP, the Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance includes a 266 MHz PC processor, a 5.2 GB HD, 64 MB of RAM and runs the Linux operating system. However, it fails to recognize Linux, or any non-Microsoft operating system as a valid client. In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client."
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HP Print Server Uses Linux, But Doesn't Support It? More

HP Print Server Uses Linux, But Doesn't Support It?

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  • It looks to me like those are the printers it will print to, not accept client connections from.

  • Time to get a real job, Rob. (Score:3)

    by hatless ( 8275 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @01:37PM (#814012)
    I'm not sure what you do at VA/Andover, Rob, but if you're just hacking Slashcode, maybe you should treat your employment at VA/Andover as an opportunity to learn a bit about the IT real world, about heterogeneous networks built out of systems running things other than Linux and *BSD.

    HP's network printers all support LPD. If you have even one mediocre PCL5-to-Postscript filter for Ghostscript, you can print to it. If your printer supports Postscript, you don't even need that little bit of configuration.

    A JetDirect server is a little box or card that converts a non-network printer into a network printer, typically by receiving jobs via ethernet and handing them to the device's parallel interface. I've never seen a JetDirect server that didn't support LPD. As far as I know, they all do. HP is a large Unix vendor, after all. Most Windows printing to HP network printers prior to this native SMB support is actually done via LPD. Client machines send jobs via SMB to a print server (typically an NT box), and the print server transmits it as an LPD job to the printer. The newer JetDirect cards remove the need to run a "software" print server by putting the SMB support into (or next to) the printer.

    Later JetDirect models have added built-in support for Netware, Ethertalk and most recently, direct SMB support. If for some reason (security, strict job management, or some weird neurosis) you want to print fron Linux machines using something other than LPD, you're certainly welcome to do so. Netatalk and CAP both support Ethertalk printing, Mars-NWE (if I recall) supports Netware printing, and Samba supports SMB printing just fine, and they've all done so for years.

    Unless HP has suddenly abandoned all four of these protocols (and no, they haven't) in favor of a strage new networked variation of PPA (the "Winprinter" protocol on some of their cheap inkjets), you can print from Linux very easily indeed on any and all JetDirect-connected printers. Not to mention the myriad LPD-capable Xerox, Canon, Textronix and IBM printers chugging away out there. Granted, if you have a $50,000 printer with multiple output trays, six paper drawers, multipoint stapling, a laminator and an envelope-stuffing attachment, you're not going to have a Linux driver on hand that can use all of those features. But you'll be able to print just fine.

  • And they are RIGHT (Score:3)

    by LetterRip ( 30937 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:37AM (#814013)
    One a Linux box is set up and configured properly, it can go forever. Thus it makes great sense as a preconfigured print server. On the other hand, getting a Linux box set up as a client, can be absolute hell! There are three bazillion tweaks and incompatibilites that your flavor of Linux client can have. The printer drivers are generally bare bones support, and designed by people outside of the printer company. Thus the return for offering support versus the effort needed to maintain that support on linux is a very poor proposition. Until Linux becomes a relatively large and homogenous target market, it doesn't make economic sense to support it as a client.

    LetterRip
    Tom M.
    TomM@pentstar.com
  • But why were you even running ftpd? If you didn't use it, it should have been disabled. If you did, you should have kept it up to date. Remember, the less crap in your inetd.conf, the easier it is to keep your system up-to-date.
  • This is a non-issue, folks! And very much so. This is a printer appliance, and not a printer itself. This is a sort of middle-man product designed explicitly so that Windows computers using the SMB protocol can print to any network printer that supports the line printer daemon protocol [faqs.org] so that you don't have to install HP's Jet Admin software onto a Windows workstation to allow other Windows clients to use that printer.

    In case you hadn't noticed, Windows, by default, in no way supports the LPD protocol, no standard printer drivers that I've ever seen support that kind of functionality, and HP themselves usually distributes third party NT-based server software with their network printers to allow SMB clients to connect to that server which acts as sort of proxy to the network printer itself. All this product does is replace that server software with a box you can easily mount in a rack, give a couple of IP addresses to, and just go instead of having to mess around with complicated software installations and risk crashing that unstable NT box you've decided to use as the SMB (not LPD -- note the difference) print server.

    If anything, HP deserves credit (yay HP!) for what they've done with this product, not derided. (And their marketing department looks to be pretty on the ball here, so don't give them crap either.) They're using Linux to provide functionality easily which would otherwise be very difficult if the customer relied strictly on Windows. Your Unix box can still print just fine with this product around because it CAN use the LPD protocol. Your cubicle-mate, however, can't because, if anything, his stupid Windows box probably thinks LPD is a psychoactive drug or something and so, with the HP Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance, he now gets the same functionality out of the network printer that you do, and the boss doesn't have to spend $3k on yet another server that has to be configured with a whole OS and all that goes along with that. Or, alternatively, he doesn't have to dance with Samba on a Unix server he may already have set up, taking away resources from the already heavy Oracle database running on it. Or, alternatively to that, he doesn't have to rely on the Jet Admin software being installed on an NT workstation that might possibly crash often or get misconfigured or be prone to any of an infinity of pilot errors. Sounds like a good deal to me.

    No, this isn't ironic, CmdrTaco. Y'all just don't do your research and are quick to jump a reactionary gun at anything that doesn't just gush about Linux and is designed to support Windows exclusively. In this case, it's only Windows that needs this support because your Linux box can already do what Windows can't.

    Geez.

    jer

  • Indeed. I got a perfect example of this when HP technical support refused to tell me how to get the BIOS to recognise the suspend partition on my HP laptop. [...] The tech support guy quite happily told me that he ran Red Hat at home, but wasn't allowed to tell me anything because I wasn't running Windows...

    Weird. Back in 1995, when I first had an opportunity to try Linux, I wanted to install on a 66 MHz 80486 HP Vectra XM, a pretty nice machine with built-in video and networking. Unfortunately, the manual didn't tell you what kind of video chipset the system had. So I called HP, used my HP-UX system ID, and was put through to an engineer who looked the information up in a book for me.

    That's probably the key, though -- the HP-UX support people are almost certainly not the same as the people who do support for their PCs and laptops. And, now that I think about it, I may have had to dance around the questions from the receptionist, as well.

  • A printing appliance with such specs should cost HP around $300.00 to manufacture. Give them a 15% margin, then let the retailers mark it up 50% and you're still under $700.00.

    The price point here was set at what managers expect to pay for a name brand device.

    Of course it is quite a deal compared to the price of WinNT/2k Server for printing + client licensing at $35 per...
  • Of course noone actually reads the links they are too busy whining that they can't have a $1300 print appliance in their living room.

    I agree with your opinion - mostly. I don't think the article was posted because of it's alleged 'incompatibility' with Linux, but rather the irony that accompanies the fact that it runs Linux, but you can't print to it with Linux.

    On the other hand, it should also be seen as a thumbs up for the Linux world as we've achieved yet another corporate acceptance - Hewlett Packard.
  • If you use any Unix you don't need it.

    The Print Appliance helps a Windows machine to print to "Unix" ldp printers.

    With Unix just print directly to the printer or set up a print spool on a unix machine and tell the Print Appliance to use that spool/printer.

    Oh, and Linux is a Unix as far as I care.

    florian
  • I have to agree, IME it's one of the bigger stumbling blocks to desktop Linux in an NT environment. Samba works reasonably well but seems to be better at making mounts available than connecting to those mounts. I used Mandrake as a desktop exclusively at work for about six months and this was the one shortfall, as even with a properly configured Samba it was hard to maintain mounts on an NT file server and resulted in a lot of semi-broken directories in my ~home directory.

  • Re:HP is afraid of Linux (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is a good thing that they are called Hewlett-Packard instead of Packard-Hewlett, otherwise instead of HP-UX we'd be dealing with PH-UX.
  • From "Why Software Should Be Free" by RMS:
    ...Later Xerox gave the AI lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features...
    No...not another FSF! ;)
  • "Supporting" UNIX clients means testing against them and dealing with issues that come up with technical support. That's expensive, and it is sensible for HP not to do that.

    The box may or may not still accept UNIX line printer connections. If I were putting together the product, I would disable that because it raises all sorts of additional security issues.

    You can almost certainly print to the box using SMB from a UNIX client. But, of course, if it doesn't work, you have to figure out yourself why.

  • Reminds me of some of the non-PS Apple printers for Macs. They relied on Quickdraw in the OS to do the actual rendering and then sent the bitmap data out to the printer.

    I imagine that HP is using Windows GDI to accomplish the same thing. That way the printer is nothing more than a mechanism for moving paper in front of a print head, it doesn't require a whole lot (any?) programmable logic or the cost involved in developing it.

    The gripe I have is that in this day and age, I can't imagine that the cost involved in adding a slot for a $100 smart networking+formatter board that would allow dumb printers to become smarter printers. HP does it for the networking side, and it'd be great to see it for the formatting side of the equation, too.

    With enough integration and planning they could make a single formatter board work across their entire range of printers. Making it optional would enable them to keep shilling $109 printers to the masses at CompUSA without raking anyone who wants a little brains over the coals.
  • 33MHz 486 with 500MB hard drive and 8MB RAM: got from garbage, free.

    Pentium 75 with 1.5GB: $80.

    All my appliance needs is a printer and, oh yes, for me to want such a thing.

    The computers have in invaded my living room, get out while you still can!

  • While I haven't double-checked it for use, nmap shows that on our 4050N's by HP, the port for lpr is indeed open.

    As for setting up printers, I've never had a problem using anything other than printtool.
  • Listen, you poor little fella. There's a big-ass thing you missed. If the printer in question is connected to a Windows NT system, and the printer is not using the default Windows NT printer driver, or if that printer driver wasn't included in NT and had to be added, it won't work! It'll only work if you install the printer as a local printer using the Win2k driver, then use net use to make LPT1 the other one. It's a big fat mess.
    And you're gonna tell me it's harder to set up a network printer in Linux?
  • JetDirect devices support LPD.. so I'd expect that this "appliance" does as well. I was also a bit confused about this article. Linux (and any unix that can run LPD) *is* supported AFAIK. Commercial support may be an issue though.
  • You would think that a vendor like HP would be willing to provide support to a company that just spent 20k on printers and consumables... No such luck.

    One of our 8100N's refused to feed paper from the optional large (expensive) paper tray. I called HP and spoke to three reps, all of which thought that "you have a software problem, what's Solaris"

    After about days wasted we discovered that the paper guides were broken and just sent the thing back to the vendor. I will never make the mistake of buying an HP product again.
  • I contacted HP direct on this issue once (I buy all HP equipment), and they told me there is not and never will be a jetdirect software for Linux. However, as many have pointed out, you can just go straight in with lpd and it will work (had plenty of problems with non-postscript print queues on RedHat tho'....)
  • 20%?!?! Hate to burst your bubble but this is not aimed at the college hax0r consumer. This is a business appliance. You show me 20% on the business desktop, and then we'll talk.

    Quit moderating up Fascdot Killed My PR. He is a troll.

  • They don't need it; that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't be able to use it, though.

    For the record, the point about being able to provide network-wide print services to a Windows network without having to pay deployment fees out the wazoo would have to be a great reason for using Linux in this beast. Saves HP royalties, saves the customers money (though anyone using embedded NT should be beaten anyway for taking the long way around for no good reason), and it does in fact do the job.

    /Brian
  • HP has horrible driver support for NT and Windows 2000 in their printers and scanners. It's like they think that everyone runs Windows 9x, even businesses. Many of their products don't have NT drivers, and those that do don't have anywhere near the features of their corresponding Win 98 drivers...
  • Personally, I think it's dumb that it runs Linux but doesn't support it. But, seriously people, a majority of print servers are probably already run off of Windoze machines. All you need to do is run Samba. Then the printer will "think" that you are another Windoze machine.

    BTW, this whole printer thing is not too hard to setup. I had my printer setup for a while to print to a printer located on a Windoze box. I did it under RedHat, and haven't bothered to set it up again under SuSE. But I remember that it was fairly painless.

    Now that the moderators are considering marking this up as "Informative," does anyone else think that Micro$oft might have paid for this? I wouldn't be too surprised if this was the truth. Micro$oft is too big to be greatly affected by negative publicity. They're being sued by the Federal Government, one of the least trusted organizations, because they don't trust Micro$oft. Yet Micro$oft's Empire is still the largest. C'mon Tux, you can do it. You can crumble that dirty empire...

    ...............
    SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name

  • Isnt that how windows 2.0 was and windows 3.0 came with a unified print architecture. or was it 3.1. Anway the point is - this is the right opportunity to create such and API and in the absence of a player HP can step up to the plate.

  • Supporting the lpd standard on the JetDirect 4000 would be trivial for them, and give them excellent Linux support. Any tweaks on the Linux box are irrelevant, you are just spreading FUD.

    ----
  • Samba Rocks!!!! Carry on with the fabulous work.
  • If the cost of support is greater than the revenue, then they woulds be losing money. Companies exist to maximize profit, so they're not going to offer services or products that will lose money.

    Eric ze Kidder
  • Use Linux -> You have substantial control over the box, and can make it do what you want. No licensing costs. Good.

    Support Linux Clients -> Users have substantial control over their boxes, and can have arbitrary local patches, changes, or different (and possibly incompatible versions). Impossible to *support*.

    I don't particularly blame them. I've done Unix support, and even if you have people nailed down to a specific version of a specific distribution, it's a serious pain.

    Flexibility is hard to support.

  • Not as stupid as it sounds... (Score:3)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:43AM (#814040) Homepage Journal
    "Supported" has different meanings to different people. Saying that Linux is not supported as a client is a long, long way from saying that it won't work. They may just not have their support staff trained on Linux printing issues. It's as valid a reason as any.

    ---
  • I imagine that HP is using Windows GDI to accomplish the same thing. That way the printer is nothing more than a mechanism for moving paper in front of a print head, it doesn't require a whole lot (any?) programmable logic or the cost involved in developing it.

    This is pretty much what HP's PPA printers (700 series and some others) do. And, they do have a linux driver that in addition to ghostscript can render postscript to them.

  • Just because it does not show linux in its setup doesn't mean crap.

    It uses LDP print to the port!!!
  • it is relatively easier for them to support the appliance than to officially support all the various and sundry combinations of system software and hardware that people can make boot. they designed the appliance and hence they know how it works and there are no variables. it costs more for ANY company to support ANY additional platform. this must be passed onto the consumer. if they do not believe there are enough additional consumers to offset this cost it's not worth their while (and most linux advocates i know want everything to to be free anyway). it's not to say that there's never been foul play involved in these decisions but everything is not a conspiracy.
  • Why would they make more money if that had linux. You are aware that it cost money to develop sofware. Anyway thy probably didnt choose linux becuase it was so great, but rather becuase they dont have to pay an expensive licensing fees for it. Hence they dont have to pay money for every print server they sell.
    Anyway it is well known that linux is a better in in a server role, as opposed to a desktop, despite heroic efforts, (dont worry its getting there).
  • How much money and personel do you need to write a HP JetDirect 4000 Print Appliance HOW-TO?

    I mean come on!

  • Rafts of posts have pointed out that this box works with 'any LPD-enabled network printer,' as if that somehow meant that HP really is supporting Linux/Unix (after and just forgot to mention it (lpd being, after all, originally a Unix-based protocol).

    Please read that again. All it means is that their box can (nay, must) communicate with its associated printer over the network -- port 515, lpd protocol. It doesn't mean that a Unix or Linux client can communicate *with the box* using lpd!

    Now you might very well ask why you'd need to communicate with the box if you can just spool directly to the printer with lpd. In fact, you might ask why you'd need the box at all, given that your printer already must have a network port -- why not just use an lpd client on your Windows client?!

    HP seems to be selling this as a better spooler that acts as an intermediary between your crappy Windows boxes and your printer's rudimentary built-in network connection. It's common practice to do this on a Windows server box because (a) Windows lpd clients are not very common and (b) network-enabled printers for some reason don't usually speak SMB and (c) the network printers don't handle spooling in a very sophisticated manner. The advantage to the box is supposed to be that it is cheaper than buying a whole new Windows server machine to do the jobbecause your Windows file server keeps going down and you don't want printing to be interrupted when it does (they actually say this, almost!)

    Of course a dumpster-dived (-dove? -diven?) 486 running Linux would do this just fine and other stuff as well, as it has in our lab for years, but I can see the appeal to non-technical types who just want everything to work when they plug it in.

    The box apparently does NOT support *clients* via lpd, and as such cannot really be called 'Linux-compatible.' Though I am sure it is possible to talk to it using Samba (obviously HP doesn't support this; in their FAQ they state flat out that Unix clients cannot use the box). All I can say is, 'stupid, stupid, stupid.'

  • Re:Questions (Score:5)

    by Jeremy Allison - Sam ( 8157 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @08:13AM (#814047) Homepage
    Q) .What has the open source movement gained?

    ans: nuffin.

    Bzzzzt : WRONG ANSWER - thanks for playing.

    I don't want to talk too much about this as I'm
    sure HP have lots of marketing they want to do
    around this.

    But the deal is that *yes* this box uses Samba.
    *YES* - HP have donated a *lot* of time, effort,
    *CODE* (note that - it's important !) and money
    in helping Samba support the new WinNT print
    subsystem.

    They have also helped us push the development on
    authentigration and user enumeration between Samba
    and WinNT, (check out the winbind project being
    done on the Samba lists).

    All of these goodies will appear in Samba 2.2.x,
    due... well.... when it's *ready* (soon I hope) !

    HP are *massively* contributing to Samba, and
    the Open Source efforts. Just as much as other
    vendors (SGI, Veritas) and other official Samba
    supporters do !

    Don't knock them just because their marketing
    people sometimes are a bit clueless, and only
    mention Windows in a product sheet.

    They don't mention Samba either (I'm going to
    be having a word with them about that.... :-).

    Regards,

    Jeremy Allison,
    Samba Team.
  • I swear it seems like companies don't want to make money. It seems to me that it would be wise to offer a product to as wide a range as possible.

    We're linux geeks. It's not like we're going to call their technical support. That'd take all the fun out of it.

    Misfit
  • In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client.

    Hey, so much for journalistic objectivity.

    Thank you, Spyky, for making that assumption for us. Thanks for thoroughly researching this situation and sharing with us your keen and impartial observations.

    And thank you, CmdrTaco, for making sure we all get the clearest facts and the most objective tone.

    Jeeze. Just because the spec does not *list* Linux as being "supported" does not mean that it does not work. Moreover, it does not mean that HP has put the nix on Linux as a client as was so obviously implied.

    Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
    Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
  • This is because Linux is so fragmented ( all the diff dists ) that tech support people just can't keep up so HP and my company ( Compaq ) has a hard time supporting an OS that is so fragmented.

  • And the problem with this is? (Score:4)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @08:14AM (#814051)
    Every day in corporations across America, someone installs a server OS they have no intention of installing on the client. Samba is becoming a viable alternative to NT: is anyone surprised the clients are still running Windows?

    Personally, I see this as the right way of doing things. Linux is good as a server, and I like to play around with it on my machine (I program for class on it). But from my own tests, I would never install it on my family's machine.

  • but does it run windows?

    I'm a moron who saved my password in a cyber cafe.
  • While I have about us much use for Paul Allen (and anyone else associated with Micros~1) as tits on a boar hog, I use Charter's cable modem service both at home and at my office. At the office I'm using IP Masq to provide internet to all 20 workstation systems, and at home I'm using 3 IP's with one cable modem. On the little home LAN is one box doing IP Masq for 4 other boxen, and 2 other boxen getting their own IP's, one of which is my Quake3 server. And I know some their tech guys here in my area who use and love Linux and FreeBSD. Sales people may be clueless... But the people who really keep things working, the techs, aren't. And I know for a fact some of Charter DNS servers run RedHat 6.1. I pointed out to them that ns1.chartertn.net accepted incoming telnet requests. Needless to say they fixed that immediately. :)

  • SMB over TCP/IP (Score:3)

    by Hooptie ( 10094 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:29AM (#814054) Homepage
    According to HP's blurb it uses "SMB over TCP/IP" so couldn't you just use Samba, which is what the box probably uses anyway?

    Hooptie

  • Then you didn't set it up right. Running a box properly required you to be informed about security vulnerabilities that are discovered. Just like Windows - the patches don't apply themselves...

  • Linux as server, not client (Score:4)

    by Noer ( 85363 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:29AM (#814056)
    It seems that HP is far from alone in seeing Linux as a valid, cheap, better-performing alternative to Microsoft OS's on the server-side, but (like much of the industry) doesn't think Linux has any business as a client/workstation OS. I think that's a mistaken view, but it's a common one. Of course, what they're failing to see, is that even a server may (depending on purpose) need to print from time to time.
  • I have set up countless linux boxes in the last 5 years, and have yet to get a box to print to a network print server.

    Granted, it hasn't been something I've spent a lot of time on, but I have an office full of Windows machines printing to a Windows print server (running HP jetdirect, as a matter of fact), but none of the linux boxes print to the thing.

    The ability to add network printers quickly and easily is still lacking in both gnome and KDE... Perhaps this is why HP isn't eager to support linux?
  • I have a similiar complaint..

    Some companies really have their heads up their rears when it comes to drivers. I've got a SpeedStream 3600 ADSL card in my Win98 machine because there's no drivers for Linux, so I'm forced to use Win98 with Internet Connection Sharing as my home network's gateway to the 'net. This irritates me to no end because it is exactly what linux would be good at, but I'm forced to do it this way because there's no drivers for the SpeedStream 3600 on linux.

    Why can't these companies see that the ratio of linux to windows users using higher bandwidth connections is going to be much more significant than with regular old dial-up POTS? Therefore, a linux driver would not be so out of the question due to that ratio?

    --

  • Re:Why would they (Score:4)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:43AM (#814059) Homepage Journal
    linux lusers would whine and cry about it not being Open Source

    Presumably, if it's using Linux, it is open source?
    But more seriously, I've never known a linux user to skimp from buying hardware. Software maybe (why buy it when you can write your own version?), but hardware is not something you can download the source code for to get it for free.

  • I have no idea how this thing works but it wasn't clear to me if the original poster really knows it doesn't work with Linux or if he just read the web page and saw that Linux isn't included in the list of "Supported Operating Systems". Just from reading the page, I'd guess it's saying that Linux isn't officially supported, not that you can't use it with Linux. You could probably use it with a Mac running DAVE, too.

    Probably people will be irate even if it only means there's no official support. But realistically, it would be a huge additional expense for them to have to troubleshoot Samba configurations. I can see why they might not want to do that.

    ---------

  • It uses SMB for the clients, but it supports any lpd capable printer. That means you don't need the HP server, just use lpr and print to the printer directly. Why they run lpd on the thing, I don't understand. It would be so easy to do, especially since they are running a Linux kernel.

    But, if you *think* you need this device and are running Linux, maybe you should install Windows.

    dmp

  • Re:That's not as dumb as it sounds (Score:3)

    by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:47AM (#814062) Homepage Journal
    > This is a business appliance.

    And this is a business. And we have windows PCs, Linux boxes and AS/400s which all need to be able to use the printers.

    What's this "hax0r consumer" you are talking about got to do with it? If you think linux is confined to colleges you need to progress beyond 1995.

    Also, I would add that while the non-ms machines here are well under 20%, the amount of printing done from them is probably more than 20% of the total.
  • In that case, they shouldn't support Windows. If they dropped support of Windows in favour of Linux (or any other *nix for that matter), their support calls would plummet.

    Ok, so would their sales. The *nix market for these things is, admittedly, much smaller than the Windows market (for now).

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • Re:What exactly does this mean? (Score:3)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:48AM (#814064) Homepage
    I can't believe that this was enough to warrant a story submission.

    Sure it is.

    It has the key features for a story:
    • Something failing to support linux
    • Some hardware using Linux
    • Tech specs of this hardware
    • This hardware is new
    • Mentions Microsoft Windows
    • Windows has something that Linux doesn't (support from HP)

    What else did you want ? This article has almost all the requirements for an approved story. The only missing item would be to mention somewhere the word "geek".
  • This is not that big of a surprise. One division of the company appears to be pro-linux and another division appears to be anti-Linux or Microsoft-exclusive.

    Indeed. I got a perfect example of this when HP technical support refused to tell me how to get the BIOS to recognise the suspend partition on my HP laptop. I said "Does it have to be in a specific location? Does it have to have a particular partition type? Does it have to be formatted in any particular way?". They said "Use the utility we provide under Windows". I pointed out that I didn't run Windows, and thus couldn't run the utility (which I didn't have anyway). They refused to give me the information I needed. I didn't want help on how to do anything, I just needed the info so I could do it myself. But apparently any non-MS usage isn't allowed, and they wouldn't tell me anything. The tech support guy quite happily told me that he ran Red Hat at home, but wasn't allowed to tell me anything because I wasn't running Windows...

  • This really doesn't surprise me in the least I mean HP even refuses to support a "mainstream" OS like Winblows 2K. Ok thats a lie they support it IF you pay exrta money just to get the 2000 drivers... WTF??

  • I have no problem with there being no support for Linux by hardware manufacturers. Tech Support is a huge expense, and training personel how to deal with one OS family is hard enough.

    What I do have a problem with is the failure to be open with technical information. The presentation of such information could be done via web page (as is done with many drive manufacturers,) explicitly without warranty of accuracy, etc, thus minimizing the cost while maintaining a larger population of possible consumers for their product.

    Regarding the print server, I don't see why they don't (assuming they don't) let it be both a standard JetDirect (i.e. lpd) server as will as a SMB share.
    --

  • Put aside the conspiracy theory for a minute and look at it. The purpose of this cheap little device is to remove print spooling from your overworked NT and put it off to the side where you don't have to worry about it. (by cheap I mean it's $1300 compared to the $20000 NT box your using now) And even better is that it's doing this with our favorite OS.

    Basically it's a replacement part. And however your unix is connected to your current NT print server will most likely transfer over to it.

    Furthur more, it is running lpd, it is Linux based, and you can probly telnet to it. Thus you should have no problem setting it up as your unix print server as well. For all we know there is probly a readme on the device which explains how to do just that.

  • Re:Acronym arithmetic. (Score:3)

    by jbarnett ( 127033 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @11:00AM (#814082) Homepage
    sorry to nit pick, but won't it be

    H++;P++

    ??
  • It apparently takes jobs from SMB clients and prints them to the printer using LPR (which basically every networked laser printer supports these days, including all the HPs, Tektronix, and so on, as well as the older HP Jetdirect cards and servers.).........HP is really missing the boat on this one, anyway. You should be able to print to it via lpr.......

    Or alternatively, you could print to the printer directly using lpr couldn't you? Seems like making the traffic walk the wire once to the server, and again to the printer is a huge waste of bandwidth.
  • Well, since it's running a fullfledged os, why not include a really stripped down ftp client (there is one of these configured in /etc/services, i forget the name. tftp?) that can send a driver to the computer? Write it in java for that run-anywhere experience.

    Of course, you'd better hope the OS has the equivalent of nobody users, but I digress.

    ... or is this what PnP is supposed to do -- include the software driver in the hardware? I seem to recall something about a forth-based configuration language.

  • Re:What exactly does this mean? (Score:4)

    by TheReverand ( 95620 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:52AM (#814087) Homepage
    It supports all of the things you mention. When it says "supported clients" they mean you can call and say my win2k box doesn't work and they will help you fix it. You can't say "my Linux 2.1.2342 kernel won't recognize it" because they don't want to retrain their phone support. There is no "If OS = Linux then Do Not Print" conspiracy. Of course noone actually reads the links they are too busy whining that they can't have a $1300 print appliance in their living room.
  • Since when can you not use linux as a print client?
    This thing supports LPR and SMB, no? Linux can do both.

  • Y'know, I think we could be reading too much into this to be honest.

    If I were making print server appliances like the JetDirect, I'd definitely consider Linux. It's already out there, it's free. Almost zero effort gets you something which will do the job. Performance isn't really an issue I'd guess - as long as it's not terrible, the price means it'll win pretty much every time.

    If I was thinking of what client OSs to support, I can't say I'd support Linux, though. Too little market share to justify the cost and effort of testing and supporting it all to a standard that wouldn't be counterproductive. Doesn't help that we're not talking about a single, coherent system but hundreds of small variants. It's not zero market share but it's close enough that I can see how they cuold choose not to support it.

  • Just to reply to a troll....

    Granted, it wasn't a bunch of Linux boxen, but at one of the places I've worked at, we had 500+ Sun boxen running various versions of SunOS, 200+ combined HP and IBM workstations, 150 or so Macs, mainly in the marketing, plus about 100 (or thereabouts) Windows boxen.

    This was a few years ago, and since then, they've been bought out by Cadence, so I don't know what's going on there now.


    --

  • hp will NOT release mgt (SNMP) info on printers! (Score:4)

    by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @11:23AM (#814108)
    at a site I once had to manage (using SNMP), we wanted to monitor the hp printers. they did have the snmp agent running (you could 'walk' their box just fine) but you has no way to reverse translate their OIDs (variable names in dotted-numeric format) into symbolic names (sort of like disassembling assembler and trying to put human names on addresses and constants).

    apparently its HP's policy NOT to release their MIB (the document that translates numbers to names). I find this pretty pathetic; as the norm these days (and for years, too) is to release your MIB so that other netmgt stations can compile it and manage your box intelligently.

    what makes HP think that their vision is so special that they can't release their variable names?

    sheesh.

    so this latest move of theirs is not at all surprising to me. hp is NOT an "open" company; I never saw them that way; and they're not helping matters with this latest stunt.

    --

  • You're calling either Win2k or NT a full-fledged OS? I'm sorry, chum, but you're just plain wrong!
    Seriously, we tried practically everything and worked the issue for hours. It reminded me of the Office 97 file compatibility issue.
  • Maybe I'm missing something here, but...

    For $1300 I can buy this HP thing and use it as an LPR spool from my Linux box. OR...

    For nothing, I can hook the printer up to my Linux box and use my Linux box as an LPR spool.

    Given that, if you already have Linux, the product is completely unneeded, maybe that is why HP decided not to bother marketing it to the Linux community.

  • Operator error. (Score:4)

    by rew ( 6140 ) <r.e.wolff@BitWizard.nl> on Thursday August 31, 2000 @06:56AM (#814117) Homepage
    Hmm. I'd say "operator error". I just read the specs from HP, and indeed "Linux" is not listed as a client OS. However, I suspect that this is an omission in the specs than an indication that they don't really run "lpd" on the machine.

    It's pretty clear. They took the cheapest hardware they could find, put Linux on it and are selling it. It would cost EFFORT to make it not work with Linux as a client OS, as that's standard. My bet is they just use lpd (Confirmed! [hp.com]), and it would cost effort to prevent it from working.... Hmm. Disproved here [hp.com].

    Roger.

  • But, if you *think* you need this device and are running Linux, maybe you should install Windows.
    or if you really want a separate printserver (like if you had a cluster of workstations with just one printer handling a potload of volume) just fsckit and use smbprint.... ain't that hard....

    the point of this thing is plug'n'play; if you want full flex, I agree with the original poster, get yourself a 486 and put Slack on it, shut down all but ssh and lpd, and away you go. The real issue here is whether people time or hardware has more priority in your budget.

    --
    Another sneaky bastard running Linux

  • It's even creepier when you realize that the company was founded by two gents named Iewlett and Qackard.

  • That's exactly right. If you're going to an LPD capable printer, you can just set up a queue to the printer directly. You then don't need the HP 4000 print server at all!

    I do wish people would apply a little more brainpower before getting their undies in a bunch over a triviality.

    Of course, if you're setting up a new network, you'd be better to start thinking about the Common Unix Printing Ssytem [cups.org] or maybe LPR Next Generation [astart.com] instead of dealing much with LPD.

  • Wait let me guess, you have a bunch of linux machines acting as servers, and a couple are print servers so they print a lot right? Well that's what this thing does. Got it now? Understand? Clear? And if you think your piddly little 25 man shop is important to HP, YOU need to get with it.

    Repeat after me,

    "This product is designed to replace print servers"

  • Q-1: What is Hewlett-Packard?
    A-1: A profit-seeking private corporation.

    Q-2: Why would they use Linux?
    A-2: Cheap, realiable, customizeable OS available for a variety of hardware.

    Q-3: Why do most /.'ers run Linux?
    A-3: See answer #2.

    Q-4: What has HP taken away from open source?
    A-4: A free license to use Linux.

    Q-5: What do most /.'ers take away from open source?
    A-5: See answer #4.

    Q-6: What has HP given back to the open source community?
    A-6: Some code, another high-profile Linux-based product, and more validity in the market.

    Q-7: What does the average /.'er give back to the open source community?
    A-7: Some code, perhaps a few low- to medium-profile Linux-based products, and evangalism in the market.

  • I have no problem with there being no support for Linux by hardware manufacturers.

    Nor do I. If you re-read my original post, you'll see that I specifically did not want support. I only wanted techincal information about the hardware/firmware, so that I could make my own mistakes with that information. I didn't want HP to fix any problems I had. I only wanted the information to enable me to fix them myself.

  • It's an SMB print server--apparently built out of Samba, no less. That means if you have Samba (or a commercial SMB implementation, for that matter) installed on your Unix, Linux or BSD systems, you can print to this just fine. Will HP engineers field your support calls? Nope. But will you be able to print? Absolutely.

    And Samba's been bundled with civilized admin tools on every mainstream (read: bigger than 2 floppies) Linux distro of the past 4 years. It works like a champ on nearly every other Unix-like OS out there, too.

    This particular model JetDirect is a bit different from most past ones. This one is for printers that are already network-enabled, and communicates with them by LPD. It's simply a way to add SMB print queues without running a disk-based print server.

    On-board native SMB print queueing is still a fairly new and exotic feature on printers. LPD, Netware and Appletalk support aren't. Any printer you connect to this, by the way, already can be printed to directly from Unix via LPD (at the very least). But if you want to manage a single print queue for, say, logging and accounting purposes, all you need to do to bring Unix clients under this is to add four simple lines to your Samba config for each printer this is managing.

    On another note: I've never seen an HP network printer that didn't support LPD natively. It's the baseline protocol for network printers.
  • You mean for calling you an idiot?

    I'm only an engineer, and can't speak for why upper management doesn't offer a Vectra bundled with Linux; we do support Linux on Vectra, through Linuxcare, but we do not ourselves sell desktop PCs with Linux. A thought on this is that Linux is not a desktop solution, yet, but works well for servers, workstations etc.

    The whole point of my logic was that HP *should care* because we are using the products internally on Linux, and needs to support *itself*, and if it can't support itself, it won't progress. So if we're selling PCs with Linux support, even if we don't ourselves install or support Linux, and we're using our PCs with Linux, it stands to reason that other people are as well, and if only out of self interest by support our own needs, we'll also be meeting the needs and interests of others as well.

    We don't use Epson printers because HP printers are better ^^

    The nick is a joke! Really!
  • First off, my comments were mainly directed at his outrage at not being able to use lpr from a linux box to talk to the print server. And at least for that application, I think it would be more efficient to go directly to the printer via lpr.

    But I do understand the utility of a single queue. But at the same time, I understand the target market for this appliance from HP, and heterogeneous networks probably aren't high on the list. It's designed as a small appliance for Windows shops. I would hazard a guess, that most linux shops would have the internal expertise, that if they wanted to have something like this that supports linux as well as other OS's, they would have built it ages ago on their own. Probably using similar hardware that had been recycled from a user upgrade in the past.
  • Before you try to hang HP for this, think about why they might do this. The Linux in the hardware is a known quantity. They can support it without problems, it doesn't change, etc. Windows is also a known quantity. Windows NT Service Pack 6a is a certain set of libraries and executables. There may be other software issues, but the majority of stuff is standard. However, Linux is NOT a known quantity. It's would be hell for a general purpose support staff to support. Which distro, which kernel, which patches, which glibc, which utilities? The fact that the kernel upgrade notes list a dozen and a half required versions of certain software is indicitive of this. For Windows, a support person (or a piece of software like Internet Explorer) can say, okay, make sure you have Service Pack 6a installed to use this. In the Linux arena, they either have to support a specific distribution (the stock version of RedHat 6.1) or else deal with a support nightmare of trying to make sure everybody is on the same page. It makes a lot of sense for HP to not support Linux as a client under these circumstances.
  • What have HP gained?

    ans: A stable cheap operating system

    HP has their own unix OS - you don't get much cheaper than that

    What have they saved?

    ans: Shitloads of development money

    2) It's ALREADY DONE. They already pay developers

    What has the open source movement gained?

    ans: nuffin.

    First - why do they owe you anything? Using "your" product helps prove that it's a real product.

    Is this a model for future company involvement in Linux/Open source software?

    Answer is an exercise for the student

    No, answer is for the company involved, in this case HP, who has just also announced the formation (with other companies) of an Open Source lab. They have also recently committed to making linux binaries work on hpux and supporting linux as an OS on hp big iron.

    You've chosen the wrong target for your teen angst on this one.

  • As much as I hate to defend bad tech support, I can kind of understand why major PC vendors are still pretty reluctant to touch Linux support. Realistically, the market share for desktop users of Linux still isn't high enough for them to be able to justify (to their financial dept., anyway) hiring a bunch of new support staff, or retraining the ones they already have. That kind of human resources move could cost a large company like HP tens or hundreds of millions over the first year or two.

    It's not that they won't allow you to run Linux, it's that they don't support it. I would guess that your warranty/support agreement states something to that effect -- if it doesn't, then that's the issue I would bring directly to them.

    Obviously, most of the big hardware suppliers are having a hard time adjusting to the openness of Linux -- they've been dealing directly and exclusively with Microsoft for so long, the though that they would even be allowed to distribute the specs to their speciialized tools is probably still fairly foreign to them.

    --- begin karma whoring ---

    I suppose that it's also possible that Microsoft could have a "non-support" clause buried somewhere in its contracts with big PC manufacturers, barring them from providing support for other operating systems.

    --- end karma whoring ---

  • Acronym arithmetic. (Score:5)

    by slothbait ( 2922 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @07:07AM (#814155)
    Anyone else just realize that:

    HP++ = IQ

    in the same sense that

    IBM-- = HAL.

    or

    VMS++ = WNT (Windows NT)

    I'm surprised that I haven't seen this pointed out before.

    --Lenny

  • ...of something I've been telling y'all for a while.

    Free operating systems shift the balance of power towards hardware vendors. The "revolution" is plainly not of any benefit or concern to these companies. The ultimate destiny will be thousands of pieces of hardware running thousands of different Linuxes. Company X will only support *their* linux. This could be a prelude to HP getting into workstation sales. Then in order to get support, you either have to buy an HP workstation and run their Linux on it, or run Windows.

    Hmmm... I wonder what an announcement from HP stating that they were getting into the Linux workstation business would do to their stock price.

  • OK it's disappointing but I wouldn't say it's unusual. There's a lot of situations where Linux is used serverside but it's not supported on the client side. Hopefully with enough demand they'll realise that not supporting Linux based clients was the wrong thing to do. (please note: don't flame them give them valid reasons for them to support Linux. M$ $ux, Linux rules is not going to do any good, neither is Support Linux or I'll pour a bowl of hot grits down your pants.)
  • While we recognize that an IQ is generally a good thing to have, as of this time we don't support it within out management staff.
  • Let me start of by saying that I think HP should support any kind of client--we all need to print, why are they leaving 20% of us out in the cold?

    However, just because they use Linux within the appliance means nothing. Blenders have a whirling blade inside of them--but does GE support tossing your blender into a whirling blade? I doubt it.

    The point is that the technology a company uses to create a product and the need that the product fulfills are totally orthogonal issues.
    --
  • Until Linux becomes a relatively large and homogenous target market, it doesn't make economic sense to support it as a client.
    ...and until the GNOME vs. KDE war ends, Linux won't become a relatively large and homogenous target market.


    No, this is not flamebait. It's a perfect example of why a single framework makes sense. If HP could deliver, for example, a JetDirect Bonobo component, and it always got installed to the same path, and always was activated using the same tools, and that covered 95% of the Linux machines out there, then it would make sense to do, and it would make sense to train their tech support people on.

    Use this as an example of why the Linux market is currently fragmented, and needs to have more uniformity in order to gain better support. Sure, any of us Linux geeks can (and do) set up LPR to JetDirect boxes, but the typical tech support customer who needs phone help just to set up a printer, probably doesn't know his/her way around Port 515 too well.

    --
  • Well, BIOS is just a piece of software, so if you have a jumperless MOBO, you overclock that in software.

    ;-)
    G
  • I don't know what you're talking about.

    Getting a Win2K computer to print is amazingly easy. Almost as easy as using the chooser on a macintosh.

    Start-> Settings-> Printers-> Add Printer

    and viola! you're in a Winbloze wizard that will find any damn printer on your network.

    now how is that harder than trying to accomplish the same thing on a linux box?
  • Q-7: What does the average /.'er give back to the open source community? A-7: Some code, perhaps a few low- to medium-profile Linux-based products, and evangalism in the market.
    I'm not sure I agree with that. Don't get me wrong, while some /.'ers do a lot, I would not say they where average.

    I would say that the average /.er probably controbutes a lot of hot air, perhaps a bug report or two and maybe a low profile toy project. Only a very small % of Linux users controbute code, and /. isn't Linux exclusive.

    Thad

  • This is not that big of a surprise. One division of the company appears to be pro-linux and another division appears to be anti-Linux or Microsoft-exclusive.

    When a company gets as big as HP, there sometimes isn't just one corporate culture, but many.

  • Re:Client? (Score:3)

    by MikeBabcock ( 65886 ) <mtb-slashdot@mikebabcock.ca> on Thursday August 31, 2000 @12:43PM (#814203) Homepage Journal
    Don't worry about it -- 90% of these posts are from people who either had their brains turned off when they read the specs on this or didn't bother to read it at all.

    This is a PRINT SERVER, not a printer. It is to store print jobs, while the printer is busy doing something else. It is the functional equivalent of attaching a large hard drive to your network printer and giving it Windows drivers.

    Read the specs: "Supported Printers: Any LPD-enabled network printer".

    Wait a minute folks! :-) ... it supports any printer that is ALREADY SUPPORTED by Linux. Wake up and quit bashing companies that are making money. Look at the purpose of this box:

    I have a network of 50 computers running Windows and I buy a network laser printer (of almost any make). I hook it up, but have to designate one of the computers as the print server, so that I can specify an UNC name for the printer (\\MACHINE\\SHARE) and thats where the jobs get sent. This can drag an NT or 98 machine to its knees in a network environment.

    This box is so that you don't need to assign one of your existing computers to this task. You just add this device to your network and voila, you have a Windows-compatible print server to handle the "hard" work of spooling print jobs and sending them off to the printer.

    HPs probably just written a quick piece of software to provide LPD management via Apache (from the list of used software given) and allows connections via SAMBA to spool the jobs. Be HAPPY people, be HAPPY ... they're using Linux to replace Windows.

    -- The guy who thinks ...

  • FUD! (Read the specs!) (Score:4)

    by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @07:43AM (#814209) Homepage
    Or perhaps not FUD, just stupidity.

    HP networked laser printers routinely support anything that'll speak to lpd. My HP LaserJet 2100 TN certainly supports Linux (and every other *nix, and Mac, and Windows), and it looks like the 4000 does too.

    (Okay, sure, it doesn't have a fancy graphic interface to control exotic printer options like it does for the Mac or Windows -- but show me where the API for such an interface is defined in Linux or any other 'nix. I know, it's in progress.)

    Get a grip.
  • The biggest problem companies are facing in supporting linux is that it's just to much for their support crew to handle. Imagine a phone tech support guy trying to explain to a linux newbie how to edit their startup files. He'd have to know that Redhat uses a much different /etc/rc.d than Debian does. And that there are also some differences in Slackware's setup, and that Corel is also very different. Already I can hear the cries starting...LSB!! LSB!! But where is the LSB? I haven't heard a word from them in months. We've got to get Linux Standardized on it's libraries and file locations. The only other possible outcome I can see is fragmentation and/or the winning out of one distribution such as Redhat (not that the others would dissapear, only that they would be forced to comply with the winning company's standards in order to remain compatible with apps. I really can't blame HP here. I'm guessing they've just got to many dumb MCSE tech support guys that can't support the numerous other OSs that are out there. Hello...LSB anybody home????
  • Answer me this.

    How come out of all the Vectras (The reliable, manageable corporate pc (tm))on your page, not ONE is offered with Linux? If you don't even sell it to the desktop, why would you support it on the desktop? Your logic is flawed. If you are likely to use it internally, then you are unlikely to use the same products that you are selling your customers. Why don't you guys just sell epson printers while you're at it?

  • The tech support guy quite happily told me that he ran Red Hat at home, but wasn't allowed to tell me anything because I wasn't running Windows...

    Can't really blame him; if he told you what the format is, and you fscked up something, you could have a good case against HP (note: I didn't say that you'd win!)...

  • As a sort of joke, I send HP tech support and email: "Please send me the linux drivers for the HP2100." Here's the response:

    Hewlett-Packard does not write Linux drivers for the HP LaserJet 2100. Your Linux provider is responsible for providing these drivers. The HP LaserJet 2100 is backward compatible with most older HP LaserJet drivers. You should be able to run the HP LaserJet 2100 using another Hewlett-Packard LaserJet driver provided by Linux.

    Also, check out HP's "policy" on win2k drivers: http://w ww.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_d oc/lpg40837.html [hp.com]. CD Burners ship with win9x, NT drivers. You pay us $25+shipping for the win2k drivers.
  • Spyky writes: "A fairly new product from HP, the Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance includes a 266 MHz PC processor, a 5.2 GB HD, 64 MB of RAM and runs the Linux operating system. However, it fails to recognize Linux, or any non-Microsoft operating system as a valid client.

    I can't believe that this was enough to warrant a story submission.

    What do you mean, "Fails to recognize"? Give us some background here. It apparently takes jobs from SMB clients and prints them to the printer using LPR (which basically every networked laser printer supports these days, including all the HPs, Tektronix, and so on, as well as the older HP Jetdirect cards and servers.)

    By 'fails to recognize' do you mean that HP WebJet Admin can't do a printer discovery on your network and discover LPR queues on your machines magically? Or do you mean that when you use smbclient to try to print something to the HP Print Server, it won't take your request? Or do you mean that you can't print to it via LPR, which isn't part of its design function in the first place?

    HP is really missing the boat on this one, anyway. You should be able to print to it via lpr, appletalk, novell, or smb; It should support TCP/IP, IPX, and Appletalk DDP. All of this is provided with standard linux distributions now, and none of it is difficult to locate. As usual, HP misses the boat.

    Even my favorite product that they make, the HP Procurve 4000M switches, is fairly lame in some respects; In order to increase the number of VLANs on the box, you must restart the switch. I bet Cisco's laughing about that one all day every day.

  • Go read the GPL again. Did they change the kernel? Did they change Samba? (yes, but all of the code went back to the Samba guys)

    Did they change lpr? Oh wait, that's BSD, they're not required to.

    Did they write new software that *runs* under Linux? Probably, but the GPL doesn't require that all Linux software have to be GPL as well.

    Do you really think Oracle would have ported to Linux if they had to GPL it? Not on your life.
  • What have HP gained?

    ans: A stable cheap operating system

    What have they saved?

    ans: Shitloads of development money

    What has the open source movement gained?

    ans: nuffin.

    Is this a model for future company involvement in Linux/Open source software?

    Answer is an exercise for the student

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