yum-less PSC 1610 driver install?

[Andrew Malcolmson]

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 07:52:46PM +0200, Peter wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 5 Mar 2006, Chris Aitken wrote:
> 
> >Peter wrote:
> >>
> >>Can you not work with ptal instead ? I use ptal with a 1310 USB.
> >
> >Hmm. I read a little about that. Never tried it. Lots of questions there. 
> >Is it something I install or just run? Is it included on RH9? Would I be 
> >printing from command line instead of GUI apps (like OO)? Is printing 
> >across a network a problem (the hp psc 1610 is on another machine)?
> 
> I don't know about RH, ptal works with cups. If you have cups you can 
> use ptal. I do not know if the 1610 is supported in ptal, but it should 
> be. Go to the ptal page and see. The install instructions work great.

No, ptal/hpoj is obsolete and is superceded by hplip, the HP Linux
Printing Project, at http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net.  The hpoj page
itself says this.  Support for even the newest products (Photosmart
2575, 3210, and 3310) is very good though the fax support for those
models that have it is new and I haven't tried that yet.


> >The problem for me with anything on linux (because of time constaints
> >and lack of understanding about the ten peripheral topics that I have
> >to learn everytime I want to do anything new) is that I have to pick
> >a solution and just go after it (no matter what). So, I have to
> >choose ptal or hplip or whatever and keep hakcing away at it no
> >matter where it takes me (library instals, OS installs, software
> >install...).

Modern Linux distros will take care of dependencies as long as you use a
package manager like yum/Synaptic/aptitude to install the packages you
need.  For instance, as you know, hplip needs cups. If you install hplip
through your package manager cups will be installed automatically if
needed. You don't have to get into knowing which libraries to install
etc. like you did in the old days.

> Tell me about it. My problem with Windows is, that five minutes after
> someone confidently tells me that 'Windows works great and is
> compatible with all hardware' we discover that there is no driver disk
> because it was misplaced.

I support the HP All-in-One products like the OP's PSC for a living and,
I'll tell you, problems in getting these things to work in Windows go
far beyond having to download the drivers.  XP is better than
earlier versions, though.

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