Margaret Wendall wrote:

Hello -

Thanks to all who answered my questions about my H-P LaserJet5L. I've done all that was suggested including installing a later version of SuSE, and as soon as I turn on the printer it continues to print pages of garbage. I'm going to Linuxworld Expo next week and will look up a new demo CD and install it. If I end up with no printer problems, I will continue using SuSE. Otherwise I think I'll go to something else.

Margaret Wendall

I had a problem w/LPRng and initscripts right before redhat came out w/pinstripe and I went and got SuSE at the store because RedHat was too much , I liked the logo, I was crashing every 2 weeks and needed to update from 6.1 to RawHide every build, and I figured the support would be in German so I wouldn't have to worry about anything if something went wrong unless I learned fluent German. After installing SuSE-6.4 everything was fine until I sent a gif of a postscript file that wouldn't print to my printer by accident. Afterward, each page of the multiple page document was converted into many pages of garbage. My printer went through about 100 pages of garbage. It was printing garbage by itself when not connected to the computer. I erased my whole harddrive and reinstalled SuSE-6.4 and the printer finally worked. It was like the 6-7 page pdf document was converted into hundreds of pages of gif garbage and this data was electrically programmed into the printer . Even disconnecting the power and the parallel cable had no effect. I was hoping if I ran a couple hundred pieces of paper through it it would recover even though my inkjet cartridge would be gone. I just read someone's post on the kernel list and he said he was going to netBSD because of something so I know what you mean. At one point I was thinking the document that had expanded to many pages was a tmp file somewhere and everytime I reinstalled LPRng, aps and ppa the tmp print job would get started again so I erased my whole harddrive thinking this was a needle in a haystack and reinstalled. I didn't read your other posts but the way you say "As soon as I turn the printer on...." I thought maybe your printer had a document in it and it was impossible to flush the print buffer because the document was in effect programmed into its buffer, thus requiring you to flush it manually-maybe even with the interface cable plugged into the printer and your computer on-using as many pieces of paper as it took to get it to stop printing. I am no genius and I am really going out on a limb by making all these analogies to explain myself, but I hope you get your printer working again one way or another. It does seem like all distros are making just about as much as ms cost from non-developer linux users like myself who are not able to learn how to burn new cds w/installers every week to satisfy our cravings for the newest software. $1.99 distro probably just doesn't cut it. I would think the lj5mono parameter file would work with your printer unless there was a hardware problem, which is what I thought my problem was. Good luck. kmb -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq