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Best Distribution Wireless Internet/Printer??

parislexi
parislexi Posts: 6
in Getting Started with Linux

Best distributions for wireless connections to Internet and printer EASILY? For a newbie (very, very new to Linux)

Which have you personally installed and got online and connected to your printer wirelessly without tears?

I just dedicated one of my laptops to installing a Linux distribution. The other 2 laptops are Windows and Mac OS.

Checking it out via the LiveCD was a breeze however that is no indication how it will handle wireless internet & printer connections.

I went from WOW! to WHA? and disillusionment about Linux has set in.

I have been up to 4am for past 2 days wrestling with a distribution just to get an internet connection and to get connected to a wireless printer. These are considered 2 basic functions of any computer's operating system and it shouldn't be this hard!

And yes, I have googled, read online manuals, posted questions on another forum, etc. - no progress for either problem.

Suggestions for 'out of the box' (mostly) distributions that have handled wireless connections to internet and printer without

a lot of 'tweaking', please! I expect to have to do some tweaking...but not this much.

Thank you.

Dell Inspiron; 32 bit; Linux Mint 9 Isadora (trying); main edition

Comments

  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Communication with any hardware including printers can be really difficult based upon the hardware manufacturers' cooperation. The tools you use to make it work in windows are provided by the manufacturer not windows. If you can tell us what printer you are using then maybe we can help to find a guide to get it configured.
  • parislexi
    parislexi Posts: 6
    I am using a HP Office Jet 6000 printer wirelessly. (OfficeJet 6000 E609N is how it shows up on my Macbook and Windows laptops, HP-OfficeJet-6000 is how it shows up on Linux laptop). Under the 'status' heading is says 'Pending-printer warning' and then another 'ghost/transparent' message appears 'printer may not be connected'.
  • parislexi
    parislexi Posts: 6
    I think my main problem is that I don't know the hostname for the printer to fill in the correct Device URI information.
    Where/How can I obtain the information necessary to fill in the proper blanks on 'Printer Properties', etc. screen(s)?
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Are you using cups or hplip to configure your printer?
  • parislexi
    parislexi Posts: 6
    What? I'm sorry, I do not know what either of those terms are.
    I am very, very new to Linux.

    Looking over some screens, I notice that a screen titled 'Connect to Cups Server' has 'localhost' as the Cups Server, 'require encription' is unchecked. I was the one to fill in the host name with 'localhost' - but I don't think that's the right host name.
    How can I find out what the correct host name is?
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Your current method will not connect because it is trying to use cups rather than hplip ( hp's official print server software(.

    When I was looking at http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/product_detail.do?storeName=storefronts&landing=printer&category=Officejet&orderflow=1&a1=Networking&v1=Wireless/Wired&product_code=C9295A#B1H&catLevel=2 I noticed under supported operating systems that it states "Linux (see http://www.hplip.net)", which tells us that hplip is needed.

    In the hplip site there is a page stating the compatibility of your printer (http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/officejet/officejet_6000_e609n.html). Per the site you much have at least hplip version 3.9.6 installed for it to work with your printer, when I looked up the hplip-gui package that you would download through your repo (http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/hplip-gui) it is currently at 3.10.2, so the drivers are available. In case you were wondering mint is a derivative of ubuntu so mint will use ubuntu's repos.

    Now as for finding the hostname or ip address of your printer, the user manual states that the information will be available on the printed network configuration page.
  • parislexi
    parislexi Posts: 6
    Thank you, so much, for this information.
    My wireless printer now works with my new Linux Mint 9 set up on my laptop!

    Barbara L.
    Cincinnati Ohio
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    I am glad that I helped.

    It seems that hp should have included the necessary documentation in the box as they do with other Operating Systems, but even when it is missing we can still help.

    I am just glad you have a wireless HP printer rather than lexmark or something else weak, if it was one of those it probably wouldn't have been possible.
  • parislexi
    parislexi Posts: 6
    Thanks for your 'vote of confidence' for Mint - so far I'm liking it a lot and I checked out several distros this week via LiveCD downloads.
    I think this one is a keeper! I'll sleep well tonight. (I was up until about 4am last night/this morning dealing with this)

    Barbara L.

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