[geeks] Linux/Ubuntu mini-rant

[Lionel Peterson]

Hello all,

I've been dinking with a Ubuntu 7.04 VMserver instance, and I decided to upgrade it to 7.10 and came across an interesting problem with an easy solution regarding printing.

Before updating Ubuntu from 7.04 to 7.10 I installed (but did not test) an HP LJ4000TN I just got from Princeton Univesity Surplus sale. Once I updated to 7.10 (over night, it takes a while ;^) I tried to print out a few pages on the printer, but the jobs kept stalling on papersize of A4 on the printer.

Some quick Googling, I came to find out that the CUPS printing subsystem has a file called "/etc/papersize" and guess what it was set to? You guessed! "A4" A quick "sudo vi /etc/papersize" and I set it to "letter" and all was fine.

<rant>
This is the kind of little problem that keeps computers (be they Windows, Macs or *nix) out of many peoples lives - there was no reason for this to default to *anything* - it should have been a piggy-back setting based on some other setting during system build (timezone, keyboard, or simply ask country and set all kinds of date/time, currency, etc. settings)...

An average user might have spent alot of time thinking the browser was the problem, or the printer was the problem when instead it was a (relatively unknown) piece of software with a pretty obscure setting that overrides application and printer settings...

Arrgh.
</rant>

Anyway, it is set up, and now I'll never forget it - but I shouldn't have to do things like this...

Lionel