I have two Mandriva systems (one 2010.0 and one 2010.2) which will no longer recognize a newly attached parallel printer. When I first loaded the Mandriva OS on these computers the parallel printer was recognized, but after some package updates new printer recognition seems to be broken.

Is this a problem affecting only my two systems or is it something affecting all up-to-date Mandriva systems?

Perhaps this bug:

https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=59939

Try using the Cups web interface instead of the Mandriva wizard.

Jim

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Thanks for the tip, but I don't have the bug mentioned at that link. My dmesg buffer does not have the same messages as in the bug report, and the work around did not work for me.

I did some testing with the live CDs for Mandriva 2010.0, 2010.1, and Kubuntu 10.04.1 LTS. None of them will recognize a parallel printer. When Mandriva 2010.0 first came out it was able to recognize a parallel printer after downloading these printer related packages; system-config-printer task-printing-server task-printing-hp (and dependencies).

Therefore, I'm blowing the whistle, sounding the alarm, to call attention to the fact that parallel printer support has been quietly dropped from some recent Linux distros, including but perhaps not limited to Kubuntu and Mandriva.

I found a way to install a parallel printer in Mandriva. When using the printer installation tool, if "LPT #1" does not appear, select "Other" and enter "parallel:/dev/lp0" (without quotes) in the space provided, then you should be able to complete the printer installation.