[gentoo-user] new system, printing suddenly fails for all printers

[Alan E. Davis]

I've been wrangling with a new gentoo install, on an AMD X2 64 bit machine.
It's been a problematic experience, but when the system works right, it
works really right.

Printing has suddenly failed.  I had installed foo2zjs in support of an HP
P1005 printer, but it was masked by ~amd64.  Then foomatic-db collided, so I
upped that to ~amd64.  Meanwhile, and I'm not sure this was the problem, the
printer that had been working, and the deskjet that had also been working
both started to fail.  I've been wrestling with many issues, including
alsa.  There isn't any sound, and I"ve finally compiled a genkernel but the
sound isn't working, neither is printing.

I've seen a plethora of messages about failure to print, often cups.  I have
reinstalled cups, new useflags, restarted, done several things, no change.
The printers are ok.  Ubuntu's install disk has sound.  I thought maybe
alsasound was causing a problem, because when I stop the machine, it stalls
on stopping alsa.

I need to print.  Maybe tonight I'll get on irc.  Meanwhile, can someone
suggest anything?

Print jobs show up both in the localhost:631 and the gnome cups interfaces.
They show up, and show as having printed.  No such luck.

I'll try to # emerge -ua --newuse world after adding ~amd64 to make.conf.

maybe I don't belong with gentoo.  I have to USE the computer.  I can't find
a distro I want, though, that I feel confident I can install quickly and be
up to speed.  I've cherried out this system with most of the tools I need.
Maybe gotten too crazy with USE flags:


ngs were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before
changing.
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
# These are the USE flags that were used in addition to what is provided by
the
# profile used for building.
USE="mmx sse sse2 kpathsea gnome svg X avahi gtk hal dbus \
     startup-notification xinerama cups xscreensaver nvidia usb truetype
jpeg png \
     raw tiff faac faad mp3 theora v4l2 vorbis x264 xvid encode \
     pdf exif xml consolekit embedded kde qt3support"

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~amd64"


VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse"
FOO2ZJS_DEVICES="hpp1005"
LINGUAS="en"
# Does it work to have layman sourced after?AED
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=/usr/local/portage
source /usr/local/portage/layman/make.conf

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/gentoo/"


SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

Some use flages in package.use


net-print/foo2zjs foomaticdb
net-print/hplip cupsddk
app-editors/emacs-cvs gif jpeg png tiff xft
net-print/cups ppds dbus X
net-dns/avahi mdnsresponder-compat
app-text/texlive doc dvipdfm graphics png
x11-base/xorg-x11 bitmap-fonts truetype-fonts type1-fonts
app-editors/emacs-cvs xft
gnome-base/gnome-volume-manager automount
media-video/transcode dvd
net-p2p/deluge libnotify
net-dns/avahi qt3 dbus
media-gfx/gimp pdf

I am using a few overlays: science, dev-zero, emacs.


Thank you for any ideas on now to troubleshoot this.  Also with Alsa.

Alan Davis

"...can the human soul be glimpsed through a microscope? Maybe, but you'd
definitely need one of those very good ones with two eyepieces."

   -- Woody Allen, quoted by B. A. Palevitz