Misc. Ramblings

I have two problems to report in using Linux.

The first involved printing an Adobe Acrobat file. The file began as a WordPerfect file emailed to me from another worker. The file was then forwarded to another person who, I believe, inserted an image of their signature into the file, converted it into an Acrobat file and emailed that back to me.

Although the file displays fine, printing it results in a series of boxes, rather than text. I've tried various printer drivers but the problem may be in the Adobe Acrobat fonts. If so, as far as I know, there's not a whole lot I can do. So I booted into Windows and printed the file there. Otherwise, other Acrobat files seem to print fine.

As an aside, when installing the printer, Xandros indicated the "hpoj" driver would be a better fit than the HP 2200 that was the default for my HP LaserJet 2200d. However, nowhere did it say how to install this driver. In order to do so, you have to use Xandros Network to search for the hpoj driver. Once found, install it. Once installed, you have to run, at the command line, the following:

/etc/init.d/hpoj setup

The command line install will then ask you a bunch of questions, the answers of which depends on how your system is configured. Once done with the command line setup, you then have to go to Launch -> Control Center -> Peripheral Devices -> Printers -> Add -> Local Printer. The wizard continues but what you need to do is add the hpoj driver. Unfortunately, it didn't solve the problem with the Acrobat file but at least I have the hpoj loaded. But I digress.

The second problem is using my scanner. I have a Visioneer OneTouch 9120 USB scanner. However, there does not appear to be a Linux driver for this scanner. I checked out the SANE scanner site and found Visioneer is not supported. I checking other sites and it appears that it comes down to I am out of luck and should instead buy an Epson, almost any Epson. The moral of this story is check the SANE project site first before buying a scanner for Linux.

As another aside, I am using HTML-Kit, an HTML editor running under CodeWeavers/Wine. Unfortunately, HTML-Kit is not a supported application and routinely blows up. That said, it appears better suited for how I create my daily posts than any other HTML editor I've tried. All I need is something to create the post and then check for HTML syntax errors. That it does well. The spell checker also works, but that is a bonus because all I want is something to check my short posts, not something to create a multi-page site or something that gets in the way by creating crufty, non-standards compliant HTML.

In any case, I'm still here and still using Xandros Linux. But I have to switch over to Windows every once in awhile when I find problems like the two above.

Aloha!