I don't print much. Whenever I do, I inevitably forget something.

I plug printer into power strip. I've switched to kernel 2.6, so I have to use modprobe usblp instead of printer. /etc/init.d/cups start. /usr/bin/enable EpsonC82 for good measure. I never can trust cups. Whoever named the command the same as a shell builtin, forcing me to remember the entire path—or maybe some clever hackaround like command would work—either way, they're an idiot. I open gimp, then the screenshot, then print...? Print???? There is no print!

Someone has cleverly added a USE flag for gimp-print support to gimp. Sigh. USE="gimpprint" emerge gimp. While the compile runs, I go back to copying old dreams from scribbles and emails and dream logs where I left them into my neatly written dream journal. When I get to the 15th, I have to wait, because someone broke E2.

Software Error:
Can't use string ("") as HASH ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/Everything/HTML.pm line 1767.

I throw an email at JayBonci like it says, even though I'm sure twenty other noders already have. I wish I could email edev@ or something in case Jay happens to be asleep. By now gimp is finished. Open, open, print! At some point, I need to bitchslap the import command for writing the PNG with bad resolution info. For now, I "scale" the image to 95 DPI to make it print at the right size. Then I can really print, now that the settings are correct. Nothing happens.

The job vanishes into the bit bucket, so I print out a random small text file as a test. It gets spooled, goes into the queue, and sits there. Soon enough, cups is saying the printer is not ready. The error log suggests it doesn't exist. Bullshit! I know it exists, because I loaded the module, and lsmod says usblp is still there! So I go groveling in /proc/bus/usb and find there really is no printer. The USB cable isn't plugged in because I haven't printed since last playing with my hardware. I plug, run another stupid /usr/bin/enable, and the text file prints.

The screenshot is nowhere to be found, so I print again from gimp, saving the default scale and settings this time. It comes out black. I adjust the levels in gimp, setting it to output at 36-255, making it horribly ugly looking, and print again. It's still too dark, but bright enough to see details, and I don't have infinite ink. This doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, because it's just a special run for someone whose exploding Windows ME install refuses to display anything better than VGA, so I declare it perfect enough and look at the clock.

The whole process took an hour. And they tell me Linux is ready for the desktop? I am so buying a Mac next time.