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Messages - Doug Bissett

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1456
Hardware / Re: Cups or not Cups
« on: November 10, 2013, 08:15:01 pm »
I think you may be restricting yourself, unnecessarily, by insisting on a laser printer. Ink jets are far more common, and it should be easier to find one that is known to work. Unfortunately, there are a number of very inaccurate lists of what does, or doesn't, work with CUPS. I don't know if that is because people can't get them to work, or if they just can't figure out how to set them up properly (probably a combination). Most likely, somebody bought a new printer, and couldn't get it to go because CUPS had not been updated to support that model. Some time later, the printer is supported, and the list never gets updated (probably no way to do that, in most cases).

Then, we have the problem where eCUPS is lagging behind the mainstream development, but printers exist in the market for only a short period of time. This page seems to have good information for HP printers: http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/release_notes.html. Don't forget to start at the 3.12.10 version, unless Paul updates HPLIP. There are a number of LaserJet printers listed, but there is no guarantee that they will work in OS/2 (eCS), until you try them. Since HP appears to be very compatible, there is a pretty good chance that a printer that is listed, will work.

1457
Hardware / Re: Cups or not Cups
« on: November 09, 2013, 09:16:21 pm »
HPLIP 3.13.3 exists on my system - I can easily bump it to the current version, there just hasn't been a whole lot of demand for it....

It seems that HPAIO has something from HPLIP 3.13.3, but HPLIP is only at 3.12.10a. Apparently, the latest in Linux is 3.13.11. The "new" HP ENVY 5530, that I was able to test, needs HPLIP 3.13.7 (according to a Linux page that I found). I suspect that other "new" (read "currently available") printers will also need a later version. It looks like users should be looking for clearance sales, to get some left over models, that are already supported.

I suspect that there has not been a lot of demand, because OS/2 (eCS) users have become very wary of getting new printers (and even more wary of getting new scanners), before somebody else posts that they actually work. From what I have seen, HP printers seem to be very compatible, but some of the new "gee whiz" things may not work with older drivers. It also makes it difficult to figure out which the best substitute driver is.

HPAIO, on the other hand, looks like it needs some serious updating, or something different is required (possibly "digital sending"). I don't know if Linux will support the new scanners. It appears that there is some sort of security thing added, which blocks scanning. Scanning, using the built in webscan tool (network only) works, but only after the user goes into the settings, and enables it. Unfortunately, I had to give the HP ENVY 5530 back, but I can probably get my hands on it again, if there is something new to test.

1458
Hardware / Re: Cups or not Cups
« on: November 09, 2013, 08:28:14 am »
Quote
I am not sure what printer my neighbor got to replace the old printers

Okay, what he got was a HP ENVY 5530. I can make it print with USB, or wireless networking. The drivers that are available in CUPS, don't seem to match it perfectly (but I only tried a couple of them). The output seems to be quite good though.

I then tried scanning. Using the sane command line fails. I was able to scan while connected to the network, by using the built in web page, and Firefox. There is a security thing that disables scanning, by default. After I got that enabled, I was able to scan, using the webscan feature. I still get the error when trying to use the sane command line.

The bottom line is, that it looks like printing will work okay, using USB or wireless, but it may take some experimenting to find the best driver combinations. It seems that it needs HPLIP 3.13.7, for proper support, and ours is currently at 3.12.10a.

Scanning (using sane, or TAME) may work, but I think the security feature is blocking it with USB, and network connections. With some experimenting, it may be possible to make it work (I didn't want to get too serious about experimenting, in case I messed up my neighbor's settings). Worst case is that scanning will work, when using wireless networking, and a web browser (after enabling that in the settings).

1459
Hardware / Re: Cups or not Cups
« on: November 07, 2013, 07:42:47 am »
Quote
If it is local you stand a good chance of it working, if it over a network forget it, unless you want to jump through hoops.

Actually, that depends a lot on the printer. A while back, I helped my brother to get a Canon MP620 multifunction printer to print. It took some messing around, and a lot of help (especially from Paul Smedley), to get CUPS to go. After trying the different options, network connected (wireless) turned out to be the best option (it requires the bjnp.exe backend, which has never been made available at netlabs, AFAIK). We never did try to get the scanner to work (ran out of time).

Recently, my neighbor decided that he was going to replace his two HP printers, so he did, and he gave me the old ones (great neighbor). One is a HP Photosmart C4180, USB connected printer. That was harder to get working than the HP Photosmart D110a, which connects with wireless networking (the socket.exe backend). The usb.exe backend from Paul's web site is required to make the C4180, and any other USB attached printer, work properly ( I think).

FWIW, I think that HP printers are the most likely to work, wireless, or USB connected. I can also make both of them scan successfully (using the sane command line), but that is harder to get going. I did have the C4180 scanning from TAME (the one that came with the first eCS 2.2. beta), but when I tried to get TAME to scan from the D110a, all TAME scanning quit working, and I haven't found the trick to get it working again on the C4180. Both still work with the sane command line.

One GREAT thing about the D110a (running wireless networking), is that I can use Firefox to browse the built in web page, and one of the options is to use what they call "webscan", which scans whatever is in the scanner, and then you can simply save the picture, just like you would for a picture from the internet. I don't know if other printers have that feature, and I am pretty sure that the printer needs to be network connected for that to work.

I am not sure what printer my neighbor got to replace the old printers (they are two of the same - probably HP -  one for work, and one for home). When he gets home (could be a couple of days), I will try to find out, and see if I can get them to work with eCS.

One other BIG advantage of using a network connected printer, is that you can use it from any machine, that has an appropriate driver installed. That includes from inside of a virtual machine, without worrying about connecting to a host machine (the printer is it's own host).

CUPSWIZ (the GUI for CUPS setup), sort of works, but it needs a LOT of work to get it right. The main thing is to set the name, and description, to something less than 8 characters, or it will not match what gets set in the CUPS configuration. Then, both HP printers wanted to use a name, and description, that is about 25 characters long. The result was that both got the same Physical name (the first 8 characters of the description, I think), which resulted in two drivers, for the same printer, rather than two printers, with separate drivers. Needless to say, that didn't work at all.

The best part of all of this, is that I can now retire my old Canon i960 printer, and my ancient Epson ES1000c SCSI scanner. That frees up a good chunk of desk space, and it didn't cost me more than about 30 sheets of paper (testing them).   :)

1460
My neighbor gave me an old HP Photosmart D110a printer/scanner. I have discovered that this thing has a different way to support scanning. Other HP printers may do the same thing.

I have the printer attached using wireless (this may be necessary for this to work), at address 192.168.0.106. If I use Firefox to go to http://HTTP://192.168/0/106 it opens a web page. One of the options, is to use WebScan (under the Scan tab). Just set the appropriate settings, and click the Start Scan button. The printer will scan, and fill in the preview box. Once that is done, RMB on the preview box, and select Save Image As... The image will be saved.

1461
Article Discussions / Re: ecs 2.2
« on: October 17, 2013, 10:52:32 pm »
I see that the betazone is back online. Obviously, something crashed, or somebody was doing some updates. In any case, it is running again, which indicates that somebody is doing something behind the scenes.

Those who seem to think that Mensys should be commenting, fail to realize that Roderick is the only guy who ever pops up here, and Roderick is not the best communicator on earth. He is also VERY busy trying to manage eCS, and there is a lot more to it than just getting eCS 2.2 out the door. I expect that he is putting in a lot of long hours, and doesn't even think about trying to keep people informed. At least this time, they seem to be doing a lot more testing, to be sure that it is right.

As for exploring alternatives, I don't see that the end is at hand, but the end is a distinct possibility, sometime in the not too distant future. It would probably be smart for all users to investigate alternatives, especially if eCS has become a limitation for them. ECS will continue to run until there is no longer hardware that it can run on. Depending on what the developers can accomplish, that may take a while, or it may happen soon. Then, it seems that virtual machines will keep it going for some time after that.

Those who wish to keep eCS (OS/2) alive had better step up, and help the cause. Whether that is by donating money to various projects, buying eCS, buying Software Subscription, doing software testing, or any number of other things, doesn't matter. At the moment, eCS needs "all hands on deck", or it will sink. Find a way to help out.

1462
Article Discussions / Re: ecs 2.2
« on: October 17, 2013, 06:48:35 am »
Am I the only person that can't access either the "Bug Tracker" or the "Beta Zone"?

klipp

No. I can't get there either, in the eCS web site, or through Software Subscription. That is probably a good sign. At least something is happening at Mensys.   :)

1463
Networking / Re: SAMBA Printing
« on: October 14, 2013, 06:24:02 pm »
Quote
I don't see any way to tell samba for OS/2 how to do that.

The user ID and password, is in the Output Port driver (SMB.PDR) settings. I think it defaults to GUEST, but it can be set.

I just tried it (with SMB.PDR dated 5 Dec 2012, from eCS 2.2 beta - bldlevel says it is 1.02.02). I see the print job in the local printer, then I see it in the remote printer, the printer wakes up, and the job goes away, as if it had finished, but nothing prints. Doing the same thing on the printer host system, I see the job go to the local printer, the printer wakes up, and the page prints.

Quote
Doug, that version of SMB.PDR is very old and lacks some important fixes.

The latest version is 1.03 and is included in the most recent test ISOs of eCS 2.2.

Hmmm. Now I remember that there was a problem there. That needs to be fixed.

I haven't tried to use the SAMBA printing support recently (about a year). I have been trying to get CUPS to work over the network (with not much success - it seems to block access, because there is no user ID and password - I can find no place to insert that information). It is not a priority, for me, anyway, since I rarely print anything, except test prints, any more.

FWIW, the whole SAMBA Wiki is a real mess. It is very difficult to figure out what the latest, recommended, versions are, and some of the later ones don't work very well.

As noted above, 1.02.02 seems to be the newest that I can find, although I do remember something about version 1.03.

1464
Networking / Re: SAMBA Printing
« on: October 14, 2013, 04:09:08 am »
Following on from Ben's saga with network drivers in which SAMBA was mentioned several times, I have a question.

Is it possible to use SAMBA as the transport mechanism to print from OS/2 to a printer on a password protected network print server?

I can do this from win XP running in a VM on OS/2 but not directly from OS/2 itself.  Maybe I'm not making the necessary sacrifices.

If it is possible, and someone is actually doing it, could you/they please let me in on the secret.

It has been some time since I had this working, but the "secret" is to get the port driver for the client. Specifically: ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/samba/pdr/smb_pdr-1.0.1-20110711.zip. Then, install the printer driver in the client machine, and change the output port to use the SMB port. Of course, the printer also needs to be configured in the server machine SAMBA setup.

1465
Hardware / Re: USB & Me
« on: October 13, 2013, 12:14:38 am »
There are a few (possibly unwritten) rules about USB drivers:

UHCI and or OHCI BEFORE EHCI. Extra ones don't seem to matter. I have one machine where I must have enough of each, or none at all, or it won't boot.

Quote
BASEDEV=USBD.SYS /REQ:USBUHCD$,USBOHCD$,USBEHCD$ /V

Leave out the "REQ:" stuff. It is not required, and the drivers do a better job of figuring that out, without it. What you have there is wrong anyway.

Quote
BASEDEV=USBMSD.ADD /FLOPPIES:0 /REMOVABLES:1

Define floppies only if you have a floppy USB drive, otherwise zero will prevent stray, not operational, drive icons from cluttering up the drives object. REMOVEABLES should be one more than the maximum possible number of devices that you would ever connect. That includes one for each possible device on a multicard reader, if you have one. The default, in recent eCS distributions is 8. I would suggest no less than 4.

Quote
I have AMouse.sys in my config.sys above the USB entries. I am assuming that order makes no difference.

There are some dependencies for ordering lines in CONFIG.SYS. If you don't know them, I suggest one of two programs to sort your CONFIG.SYS properly. One comes with eCS:
C:\ecs\bin\CFGSORT.CMD
The other is available at HOBBES:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/config/LCSS-0-4-4.wpi
Be sure to READ the instructions. LCSS sorts CONFIG.SYS so that humans, as well as machines, can understand it.

Quote
Doesn't the number of "Floppies" reserve drive letters?

You will see the number of icons that you define (including zero). If you have a floppy USB drive, define one (or more if you are likely to attach more than one floppy USB drive) only if you actually plan to use a floppy drive. Otherwise, the icons just take up real estate in the drives object, for no good reason. Most people don't know what they are, or where they came from, because they do nothing, until you attach a floppy USB drive.

1466
Networking / Re: OS/2, Realtek and NIC drivers
« on: October 12, 2013, 05:33:27 am »
It has been a long time since I looked at this stuff. I have a lot more lines, in CONFIG.SYS, related to networking, but I don't think that is where the problem lies.

PROTOCOL.INI also looks okay, I think.

Without spending a lot of time looking, the only thing that jumps out at me, in IBMLAN.INI, is that you have:
wrkservices = MESSENGER
while I have:
wrkservices = MESSENGER, peer

I seem to recall, that "MESSENGER" is optional, but "peer" starts peer sharing, which seem to be what isn't working.

1467
Networking / Re: OS/2, Realtek and NIC drivers
« on: October 11, 2013, 06:21:19 pm »
Some time back, you posted:
Quote
"Found Realtek NIC at bus 3:1:0: 10EC:8169 version 3 (RTL8169sb/8110sb)"

Now, Lantran.log says:
Quote
R8169 Hardware detected: RTL8168e/8111e.

The first one, is the one that has always worked with Multimac, for me. The second one is probably the same as the one that never worked, for me, until the very latest driver was produced (which seems to be the one that you are using).

Which one is it? Use RtlChipId.exe to find out. The "e" is probably "evl" (sort of like "evil").

I agree with Alex, that something has got out of sync somewhere.

What I would do is this:
Go to Adapters and Protocols (or whatever it may be called), and delete ALL of the entries. Then put the device back in, and add the appropriate protocols. Try it (after reboot) without changing anything, and check to see if the MAC address got picked up. If not, you need to add that. Then, try the rest of what you need to work. If it works, you are done. If not, I would start looking in IBMLAN.INI, since that is the one that is unique to NETBIOS. I don't think TCPIP would work if the others were out of sync.

1468
Networking / Re: OS/2, Realtek and NIC drivers
« on: October 11, 2013, 03:06:05 am »
Quote
It appears that you have now isolated the problem to NETBIOS, but it would be good for somebody else to verify that. I will try to find the time to install NETBIOS, on two machines using the Multimac Realtek driver, to see if it will work, or not. If that fails, you have three options: 1) report it properly. 2) use a different NIC, 3) Change to NETBIOS over TCPIP. If I can make it fail, I will report it, but a second report would help to get attention. If it doesn't fail, you need to look elsewhere for your problem. A new install would probably help in that case, but I have a bit of work to do to do a test.

Well, that was an interesting exercise. I discovered two things:
1) NETBIOS works fine with the latest Multimac driver for Realtek devices, in either direction.
2) Apparently it is just NETBIOS over TCPIP that does not coexist with SAMBA. NETBIOS seems to be okay with it (which makes sense after thinking about it).

So, it would seem that you have some other problem...

1469
Networking / Re: OS/2, Realtek and NIC drivers
« on: October 10, 2013, 10:19:01 pm »
Quote
Note that there seems to be a digit missing; a space between the first zero and the first colon.
That seems to be a cosmetic thing. I see the same.

Quote
It only accepted 0018e7183689... which as I said, doesn't work.
I haven't needed that with any of my Realtek NICS, using the Multimac driver. When I was using RTGNDA, I needed to modify the rtgnda.nif file with this section, at the end:
Code: [Select]
[NETADDRESS]
tag = NETADDRESS
display = "Network adapter address"
type = hexstring
strlength = 12
default="3c970e67241b"
optional = yes
editable = yes
help = "NETADDRESS alternates the MAC address of the adapter
with the one fixed in the hardware(in the EEPROM)."
3c970e67241b is the MAC address of the Realtek NIC. Perhaps it needs the quotes.

Quote
WRT the "NAPS Tool" I am assuming that you mean the little popup window that prompts the user to select from a choice of available LANs; Lan0 or Lan1, etc.

No. It is a replacement for the Adapters and Protocols configuration program (AKA MPTS). The fixed one is working well, for me.

Quote
Since then, Netbios will not work with either of these NICs; I keep getting that Mugwepop.exe popup when I try to logon the network.
Interesting. Is there a program by that name somewhere on your machine? I find no such thing on my systems.

It appears that you have now isolated the problem to NETBIOS, but it would be good for somebody else to verify that. I will try to find the time to install NETBIOS, on two machines using the Multimac Realtek driver, to see if it will work, or not. If that fails, you have three options: 1) report it properly. 2) use a different NIC, 3) Change to NETBIOS over TCPIP. If I can make it fail, I will report it, but a second report would help to get attention. If it doesn't fail, you need to look elsewhere for your problem. A new install would probably help in that case, but I have a bit of work to do to do a test.

1470
Networking / Re: OS/2, Realtek and NIC drivers
« on: October 10, 2013, 06:49:50 pm »
Quote
With respect to posting a bug report I say again that after having posted many bug reports, (many of them repeated), over the years, virtually every single, one of them has been a complete waste of time.

Not my experience, at all. You DO have to take the time to properly create a report. As I said earlier, a report that says "It doesn't work", with no supporting documentation, or description of what doesn't work, will often be ignored. Many people also fail to follow up and answer the developers questions. I don't blame them, at all, for ignoring such reports.

Quote
No errors showed up... at least during the install. If there are logs to look at, I know not of them.

Which "install" are you talking about. The WarpIn installer simply puts the proper files in place (look at the WarpIn log). You then have to use the Adapters and Protocols tool (AKA MPTS), or the new NAPS tool (which is broken in eCS 2.2 beta), to configure the Network, or manually change PROTOCOL.INI (correctly), to "install" the NIC. You may also need to do the complete power off (pull the plug, and remover the battery, if it is a laptop, to get the NIC reset so that it will communicate over the cable).

Quote
both have yielded the exact same results; TCP/IP works, no MPTN.

What do you mean by "no MPTN"? There is TCPIP, and there is NETBIOS. I assume you mean no "MultiProtocol Transport Services", but that isn't true, because you say that TCP/IP works. So, the bug is probably that NETBIOS is not working. I need to see if I can set up a couple of machines with that installed, and try it (it has been many years).

Quote
Neil, I just did a "netstat -n" as you suggested and the physical address is indeed set to a whole bunch of zeros!

Now, the question is, how do I find out the physical address, (MAC address), of my card? I have always used "netstat -n" to get it.

Do you have another OS installed? Try using that to find the MAC address. If not, just create a number that is not all zeros, with the same number of digits, and use that. The all zeros MAC address is, in fact, a valid MAC address, however, it seems that many routers will, incorrectly, reject it as being invalid. It can also cause a problem, if there are two, or more, of them doing the same thing, on the same subnet.

In Linux, you can do this:
Code: [Select]
    As the root user (or user with appropriate permissions)
    Type "ifconfig -a"
    From the displayed information, find eth0 (this is the default first Ethernet adapter)
    Locate the number next to the HWaddr. This is your MAC address

So now, after much prompting, it seems that we have a suspect area to investigate (NETBIOS, and/or the all zeros MAC address). If your other problem reports went like this, it is not surprising that you have not had good results from making problem reports.

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