Here's another story about a guy who would really like to install Linux on a computer but is limited by non-working peripherals that the client considers essential.

I've been talking up how I'm going to install Arch on my mother's computer in almost every other post it seems. It seems like these plans have fallen through; her printer, a Lexmark Z1300, currently is garbage under a Linux OS. Their drivers page was one of the things that made me say "oh sweet lord no". Notice how they (Lexmark) completely disregard the fact that anyone uses something other than a MAC or, heaven forbid, Windows. I dislike this company right now to a degree unthinkable by any living being.

Anywho, my mother was, to say the least, displeased that she would not be able to print things with her computer, an action considered a given by present day computer users (and it should be). Ah well. I'll just let them stick with what they have for now (XP) until the printer kicks the bucket OR until I find a sub $50 printer that works flawlessly in Linux. First and foremost, though, I need money.

And now, more adventures with the VirtualBox. Oh MAN do I love this program.

Let the official record state that I do not like Slackware. It's package management (can we even call it that?) is not to my liking at all. Packages are downloaded from their website (or cd) rather than a program such as pacman or apt/aptitude. YOU must do all dependency checking for the program. This does not please me. I understand that this may be that I'm spoiled by my nice programs that check and automatically download dependencies for me, but seriously, that one little thing, to me, makes or breaks whether or not I ENJOY building a system. I don't want to spend more time tracking down dependencies and having sub-par package management than I do using my system.

Labels: apt/aptitude, arch linux, lexmark, linux, pacman, printers, slackware