4.1.2 on old computer: no printer, no sound

[canbyte]

No Linux experience. Not a geeky type.
Need to print to OKI printer C3400n. Never gonna happen?
Sound card not really working - barks but doesn't play - see audio forum. CD player very slow/ no sound.
- this comment (from link below) seems discouraging : "I'm using Puppy version 2.00, because newer ones won't work with my sound card." I got a computer and asked the seller to put Puppy on it. What do i do, uninstall and go back to earlier version??? Hmmm.

Not a whole lotta time to mess around with all this. Dunno if i'm in over my head, not knowing the basics.

Hate to let the puppy go - i do like the 'small' idea but maybe i shoulda gone for Ubuntu that apparantly supports more of the different hardware.

Its a Pentium 2 or 3, meg ram, 20g hd,
Puppy 4.1.2 on the hd

Is there a page for real beginners here, Need a list of all those mysterious apps in the menu with a few words of description. Plus a basic primer on how to do things related to figuring out what's going wrong and fix it - looking at setup files, modifying them, installing ppd printer driver.


The other thread on my probs:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=37201
A good thread for beginners.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=37201

THanks for any suggestions.

[justme]

not the geeky type ah..lol...well if you want to use that laser printer install windows and the drivers and hope that it detects the sound card or you will have to find the driver and install it.
ubuntu is not going to get your printer working any faster..if you NEED to print get a printer that works...If I had a magic wand I would pass it over my not working cdburner , and give a fling in your direction to just make it happen...If you have no time for it give the work to someone who can do it. or make time and do the research....when that fails post the box spec and as much detail as possible and maby someone has a similar issue that will lead to success...I do not like awex00 cards they give me issues in win flavors to

I have puppy on a thumb and added xmms ( like winamp) xineui for dvd playback, gqview to view pictures and slideshows ( like irfanview), opera browser, firefox and seamonkey all have devotees for surfing.. these are not nessessary as puppy does all these things but I like these linux programs and they are easy to add.

Ok now I am ranting as I am frustrated with the laptop...misery likes company.
cheers

[rjbrewer]

Good evening gentlemen;

Don't throw in the towel yet.
Part of your problems are due to a lack of experience from
volunteers like myself and others that are trying to help. There
just aren't enough experts to devote time to every new puppy
fan that has a problem as quickly as everyone would like.

Old computers have problems. They were all designed to run
windows. The Puppy developers are trying their best to devise
systems that windows or mac have no interest in whatsoever.

I'm 64 years old; never owned a computer until 18 months ago.
Picked up a garage sale desktop for 25 bucks; had win98 on it;
useless for wireless.
After trying many Linux distros, Puppy was the only one I found
that would work with the wireless card I had...out of the box.

It's even harder for old geezers like me to learn about the
file systems and all the other Linux stuff. I know practically
nothing about windows, and don't even care to learn.
Puppy is just plain fun if you have a little patience and don't
take things too seriously.

Hopefully we can find solutions to your problems soon.

rjb

[justme]

Well said...it is a team effort to be sure...as for me I am waiting and in the mean time have put the me hd back in the laptop so I can use the burner

as for canbyte..I was suggesting the stopping of beating dead horse...the ubuntu forums search suggests that drivers for the printer in question may be more problematic than finding a printer that works and does the job...I got a cannon bubble jet for $2 at a yard sale and ink for $8..works for me...if I need the brother multifunction unit I boot winxp...I have not booted for a while.....I find that aopen cards are not so friendly ie aw200...not sure what canbyte has but I would just try another...researching linux friendly parts can be a pain as each distro has this or that...I guess the geeky part is finally finding a bunch of cards that just seem to work...
one way or the other if you own a linux box your puttin in some time...but you are always glad you did. at least I am....so to canbyte..how bad do you want it and how can I help

[rjbrewer]

Yea;

The printer that came with my box was one of the dozen or so of a
thousand plus hp printers that would not work with Linux.
5 bucks for another.
The win modem combo sound card also wouldn't work; another
5 bucks for a sound card. 35 bucks for the wireless nic.
Scrounging around for parts is fun too.

Now I'm planning on getting a new intel mini itx board. Four times
the speed and ram capacity, and only uses 25 watts, like my
old p2 board. 90 bucks, same as I have invested in the old one.

Got to have better streaming video.

[canbyte]

Great thoughts, great encouragement, thnx!

Re printing. Looks like i'll keep the old win98 box for some apps i still need - and i can do the printing from there. Seldom needed anyway. Someone posted about OKI printer having made a driver but haven't found it yet.

Maybe the other way to do this is to get puppy on my network.
Will the xp or win98 be able to look on this puppy drive to see files? So far i haven't had any luck at finding the other PCs on the network. Used Pcurl filesharing thing on the menu - message returned from setup = "no servers found". Is there any hope here or does puppy only recognize other linux boxes? Maybe its a case of either it works or it doesn't???

Justme - is xmms a media player? Maybe i should just replace the player ? Won't puppy complain? How do you find/ load/play this sort of thing. Steevieb mentioned 'Beep' on another thread.


Overall, seems that Puppy is quite stable - a lot more so than my win98. This is a big plus for my day work which seldom needs printing. I'm sorta hooked!

Seems rjb has the right approach - get another printer for 5 bucks! Spring garage sales are coming - i do see lots out there but have always worried about having to spend more than the printer is worth to get a refill. Maybe too, i should just get a new/old sound card and throw it in, hope for the best.?? i have a few old boxes around. never done that myself though!

[justme]

xmms is a multimedia player..much like winamp..for playing folders of mp3s...and cd. not sure how much ram you have..with gxine you may want to turn off the visualizations..

xmms is like winamp...you open the playlist and on the right click and hold then slide up to new dir and release..then on the left click and hold and choose file or directory..if dir then choose it from the dialog..a folder of mp3 in the home dir or /mnt/cdrom/..for example

with win amp you had to click rather than hold...you can go to /options/ preferances by right clicking on xmms then look for cd audio player click it and click configure..this will allow you to set the device if you have more than one player or it is set to a differant mount point.. and choose play mode- anolog, digital....just to get you started somewhere

have a look here
http://puppylover.netsons.org/dokupuppy/
http://puppylover.netsons.org/dokupuppy ... x=programs
http://puppylover.netsons.org/dokupuppy ... ia_players

after you download the package find it and click it then wait..it should install and tell you is is ok..then restartx or reboot..it will tell you what to do

xine ui is a better gui for playing dvds and available via the package manager

gqview (2.0.4) is a photo viewer that will play slide shows full screen...view folders...and set image as wallpaper...it can edit via links with gimp, a popular image manipulation program similar to photoshop, and mtpaint ( a paint program), etc...available via the package manager

audacity is a sound recorder...I got the one thats not compiled against jack...look in the sofware threads here

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 62&t=35225

I checked some local shops for ink availability and reinking then looked through the list of printers in cups to see what may be cheap and plentyfull...then got the $2 printer at a fundraiser sale but got a couple that were duds along the way

I just downloaded slax for a thumb and found that it will not recognize a ps2 mouse or any of my sound cards or modems..it did work on a newer machine with a usb mouse but still no sound or modem...but booted right up to an unuseable desktop..puppy is not so bad when compared..I have had pretty good luck so far

at least you got a bark..if you have any time to mess with it try some other players and settings and look for some other used cards...$1 here and there at a yard sale can work wonders some times...still not sure what kind a machine you have...will have to look at your sound thread...

sorry for the long post..over tired

cheers

[rjbrewer]

Canbyte;

You've never actually told us the make or model of your comp.
Look in system>hard info for more details on what you have.

Every little bit can help sometimes.

thanks

rjb

[canbyte]

Hi rjb, justme
Here's the info: Pentium III, 385 MB, 47 used, Puppy 0.41, 1024x768 display.
Printers (CUPS) = default
SCSI disks - ATA IBM DTLA 307020
Goldstar CDrom CRD-8240B
Card: Creative SB AWE64 pnp

Justme: you said "will have to look at your sound thread." What's a sound thread? and
"xine ui is a better gui for playing dvds and available via the package manager" Did you mean Gxine?. or is 'xine ui' the actual name?

When it really comes down to it, what i really need to do is watch clips on youtube and its competitors. I dunno what kind of file that is and can't seem to find a way to save it to disk. How does the clip know what package will hear it (the clip plays, i just can't hear it).

Wierd that i can hear the bark but not other files. (well, Pmusic will play other sounds but not cd's or other files.

I wonder what happened to my sGmixer (no response when i click on it)?

I'll have to look over the other info a bit later.

Thanks :-)

[rjbrewer]

Canbyte

What is the make and model of this old comp?
Look in hardware info and see what the processor speed is.

If it's a p3 with 384 megs ram, it"s definitely not too old: not even
for xp.

The sound card on the other hand is ancient. It's what is known as
a legacy device; fits in a isa slot. Mid 90s tech. Caused lots of
problems for linux users.

The 2 barks are wav files, raw data, the card can handle that.
Nothing wrong with wave: it's real cd quality sound; the only
thing I consider acceptable, almost as good as analogue, haha.
It does use huge quantities of space though.

Try menu> multi media sgmixer and alsamixer. make sure
volume and pcm is up around 80 in both. alsa uses l-r-up-
down arrows for adjusting. m key for mute>unmute.

I am concerned about your sgmixer; is the little speaker in
the tray.

Gxine is very good for playing cds and dvds on my comp.,
which has lower specs. than yours.

Just about any 5 buck sound card that fits in pci slots would
be betterthan that old awe-64.

rjb

[rjbrewer]

Just read your post down in hardware; you have already tried
the things I mentioned.
Youtube and most other sites don't provide wav quality streams.

Click "hear the concert" (Tom Waits ; Glitter and Doom), and
let me know if you can hear it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=92916923

[justme]

Hi

the sound thread is the other post you made under audio

as mentioned above gxine is fine...I like xine ui which is available in the package manager..you would need both xine plugin and xineui..the reason I like it is that it has better buttons..more like a dvd player as I have a lot of dvd movies and concerts..it is not required if you just watch the odd dvd...gxine is fine.

as also mentioned gxine will play mp3 fine to.. but if you were a winamp fan with windows then you will want xmms as it is almost the same as winamp and plays folders better

If the p3 is 650 mhz or better you should be able to play a dvd with little issue..I would consider finding another sound card but looks like you are close to understanding the one you have

utube vids are in .flv format and are flash videos....I am not sure how you would download to play in the stand alone flash player.

later

[canbyte]

rjb: re" I am concerned about your sgmixer; is the little speaker in
the tray" No speaker there. I posted the error msg over in the sound thread. Sorry to get the two threads going, i'd planned to focus here more on the printing and other general issues.


I can hear the Waite concert now. My screw up on the mixer/ master & cd volume. Sounds great, interesting fellow. Thats 90% of the battle as i rarely listen to music on the puter. I should clarify if the sound card is the reason the cd isn't playing?

re: "and pcm is up around 80" ... whats pcm? [i kinda assume its already fixed, just curious]. Also, sGmixer is just a different version of alsamixer and not really needed?? Sorry to be so dense! For a fellow your age and only 18 months on the puter -- quite impressive!

Justme: it looks like xine ui can be left till later, i'm not too particular about special features, just want the basic play. Well you got me to discover package manager - quite the list of stuff available, but i think i'll wait till i exhaust the standard puppy. Same i guess for xmms, although i didn't see that in pkg mgr /or the puppy menu.

Anyway i'm getting to like Puppy quite a lot.

Now to get some ability to print. I have an old xerox printer (workcenter 480) i've been using until it ran out of ink. Its a bit mechanically challenged, but maybe Puppy can use it. I'll go searching.

Cheers

[rjbrewer]

Hey Canbyte!
What did you do to my sGmixer? Mine has disappeared now too.
HaHaHa---I'll just get one out of the package manager.

PCM is what sends all those little digital thingies through your
cd player so you can hear music from the cds. (pulse code mod.)

Some cd players have a narrow 4 pin cable running from the
back of the player to the sound card. Sometimes it's necessary.

Happy you have some sound.

rjb

edit:

I had been messing with alsa; reran alsa config> rebooted> and
sg came back. Alsa and sGmix are linked , adjusting controls on
one effects the other.

[rjbrewer]

Possible printer help;


http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cg ... C3400n[url][/url]

http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cg ... Oki-C3400n

[canbyte]

Rjb: Dunno what happened to your sg but i thought my dawg looked strangely satisfied lately! Thanks for the tip, am quite impressed with the package mgr.

Is there a way to get alsamixer to remember its previous settings when booted up?

The link for the oki printer looks perfect. Instructions are quite lengthy /heavy/geeky and look to need some code/ mods (he gives 5 system options for suse, ubuntu etc but not puppy) + creating a printer queue. Me??!! Plus figuring out the network angle (my teen shares the oki)?? Not sure how i'm gonna pull this together. Sounds like itll take days/weeks of reading up on it.

No luck finding a driver for the xerox Workcenter 480 (very old, finickity) on the list thru printer wizard. I tried all the options they listed. Prolly i'll toss out this idea and concentrate of oki.

Cheers

[rjbrewer]

Sorry
I didn't read the printer stuff.
With the old hp printers it's usually simple one click or two, run cups
wizard, and your done.

I did mention that my sGmixer was okay again.

Alsa retains settings for me; still a mystery about yours.

If you use a package from the package manager, make note of
which pup version you took it from. To delete it correctly if you
want to later, the same version needs to be checkmarked.

rjb

[steevieb]

Is there a way to get alsamixer to remember its previous settings when booted up?

To make sure sound volume is up after boot, add these two lines, to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local

amixer set Master 100%
amixer set PCM 100%