Peripherals: Printers, CDROMs, floppies, and tape drives

Printers

We are currently have several network printers: the HP laser printer in the downstairs computer room (down), the HP printer in the upstairs computer room (up), the color laser printer in the downstairs computer room (color), the Tektronix color dye-sublimation printer in the upstairs computer room (c1), and the HP Design Jet 500PS poster printer (hp_poster), and Rene's laser printer (rene). The downstairs laser printer is set as the default printer. Printer information is summarized in the following table:

Printer queue name	Location	Default?	Printer model	Interface	Network name	Language	Driver
copier/newcopier	Room 116		Canon	Ethernet	astro-copier	Postscript	CUPS on astronomy
expensive	Room 118	No	Brother MFC-9840CDW	Ethernet	astro-mfc9840cdw	Postscript	CUPS on astronomy
down	Room 116	Yes	HP LaserJet 2400dtn	Ethernet	astro-hp2430	PostScript	CUPS on astronomy
up	Room 217	No	HP LaserJet 4200	Ethernet	astro-hp	PostScript	cups on astronomy
c1	Room 116A	No	Tektronix Phaser 450	Ethernet	astro-color	PostScript	cups on astronomy
hp_poster	Room 107A	No	HP DesignJet 500PS	Ethernet	astro-bigprint	PCL	cups on astronomy
color	Room 116	No	HP Color LaserJet 2605dn	Ethernet	astro-hp2605dn		cups on astronomy
rene	Room 204	no	HPLaserJet6P	Ethernet	prt-rene	PostScript	cups on astronomy
holtz	Room 102	no	Brothter HL4570CDW	holtz	PostScript	cups on astronomy

For the upstairs and downstaris printers (-Pup, -Pdown, -Pcolor), you can specify options on the command line for varions printing options, e.g.:

• lpr -Pup filename, will print the file with the default double-sided mode
• lpr -Pup/single filename, will print the file in single-sided mode (-Pdown/single for downstairs printer)
• To request manual paper feed input (e.g. for department letterhead, add
  • -o ManualFeed=True for -Pdown or -Pup
  • -o InputSlot=Tray1_Man for -Pcolor
• lpoptions -p up -l, will list a whole slew of possible options...

Because of this capability, it should never be necessary to use the printer control panel to change printer configuration.

You can also configure your print jobs using the graphical xpp command.

Printers are managed on the Linux machines using a commercial software product, PrintPro; this functionality is built-in to RedHat distributions from version 7.3 on. This allows printing via the normall UNIX commands: lp and lpr (on some of the machines, there is an additional graphical printing interface, glp). Documentation is available for the user interface and for the administrators guide. Configuration can be done using /usr/sbin/printers or via the Web at http://astrodisk:631.

The two laser printers and the HP can be accessed directly via embedded web servers.

Making posters with the poster printer

Making posters is relatively straightforward. There is a non-negligible cost to make these, so it is best to get it right the first time and not to have to make too many attempts.

We have three kinds of paper available; in order of expense, these are: lightweight paper, heavyweight paper, and glossy paper. It is very easy to switch between different rolls (you use the menu items on the printer itself to load and unload rolls). The poster printer has 42 inch wide paper; hence you want one of the two dimensions of your poster to be smaller than this size. To avoid needing to make long cuts, you might want to choose to have either the vertical or horizontal dimension be exactly 42 inches.

There are numerous ways one might make a poster for the poster printer. Here I mention a few possibilities:

• If you have a Postscript or PDF file for your poster, you should be able to print it from any of the Linux machines. The only issue here is that you will need to set the paper size appropriate for the poster that you have created. This is probably most easily done by submitting the print job using the xpp command, and using the graphical interface to specify the correct page size (select the printer hp_poster, hit the ``Options'' button and set the correct paper size under the ``Basic'' tab, you can use the "Custom" media size to set an arbitrary size). Alternatively, try: lpr -Php_poster -o pagesize=Custom.XPTSxYPTS file.ps (where XPTS and YPTS are the size of the poster in points, 72 points/inch.)

• If you use a Mac or Windows machine to create your poster (e.g. with Powerpoint, Keynote, etc.), you can probably print to the poster printer directly from your machine: try adding a printer with address astro-bigprint and have it search for the most recent driver.

• Create a poster using the xfig software available on the Linux cluster. This can be used to draw lines, boxes, text, incorporate images, etc. etc. It is straightforward to use: type xfig to start it up; use the z/Z key to zoom out/in. You can get a template for a 42 by 48 inch poster or for a 36 by 42 inch poster; these templates contain border boxes, and some sample headers (in the big one). For significant amounts of text, xfig is not recommended because each line of text will become its own object, so if you need to edit one line, you may need to fix all subsequent lines by hand if it changes the amount of text in a column. As a result, the use of LaTeX or some other program to make text into some format that can be directly incorporated into xfig is suggested. You might find it convenient to include figures in the LaTeX source; alternatively, you can import them directly into xfig and just use LaTeX for text. You will want to use a large font in the text producing program, as you do not want to use a smaller font and then scale it up to a large size using the scaling feature in xfig. If you use LaTeX, good results are obtained using the 12pt Huge font; you can get a sample LaTeX template that works fairly well and also shows how you can include a figure directly in the LaTeX text here. Convert the .dvi file into Encapsulated PostScript using dvips -E filename, and then include this into xfig (use the ``Picture'' button). After you have included the PostScript, you should use the ``Use original size'' button in xfig to insure that the text is not scaled (probably it can be safely scaled down, but you probably don't want to scale it up).

  To include graphs, photos, illustrations, etc., you can use the ``Picture'' button to include Postscript, GIF, JPEG, and several other formats. The figure will be resized to fit into the box that you create; in most cases, you will probably want to adjust the height/width ratio to its original value using the "Shrink to orig" or "Expand to orig" buttons in the Picture menu. Once the H/W ratio is correct, you can resize it preserving this ratio using the ``Scale'' button by pulling on one of the corners of the object.

  Once you have a nice looking poster from xfig, save it into a filename.fig file, using ``Save As'' from the ``File'' button.

  There is a simple script available that will convert this file to a large PostScript file and submit it to the printer with the correct page size; you can run this using:

  fig2poster filename

  where filename is the name of the file without any extension. After converting the poster to PostScript, this script will ask you to confirm that you really want to send it to the poster printer! Make sure you are happy with the poster and that the appropriate type of paper is loaded in the printer before printing.

  You can make a miniature (8.5x11) version of the poster using, e.g.:

  fig2dev -L ps -m 0.2 filename.fig filenamemini.ps

  You can adjust the size by changing the magnification factor (0.2 in above example). This can then be printed to one of the laser printers or to the Epson color inkjet printer (lpr -Pepson filenamemini.ps)

• Use LaTeX to make the entire poster. Some nice LaTeX style stuff has been created for this by several groups; a particularly nice example can be found at http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/~robert/posters.html. This example produces A0 size posters which are smaller than our printer is capabile of printing.

  I need to customize the style files, etc., to get this to work nicely with our printer.

  More later....

• Related to use of xfig above, note that you can just use xfig to incorporate a single encapsulated Postscript, JPEG, or GIF file, so if you have any software that creates one of these, you can just use xfig to convert it to a printable format. At the same time, you can also use xfig to scale your input figure to a new size (but beware of scaling things up very much, as you will probably see the resolution limits of your original graphic).

• Use any software available on the PC poseidon, which has printer drivers for the poster printer. At this point, I don't know of good Windows packages, but I'm sure they exist; if someone wanted to recommend something, we might be able to obtain it.

• If anyone develops other methods, let me know....

Note that if you want to include an NMSU logo on your poster, you can get one here (also see the official university site)

Printer supplies

• Epson PhotoEX printer. Color ink cartridges: Epson part S020110. BW ink cartridges: Epson part S020093. Standard inkjet paper is adequate for general use, but is relatively poor for printing color images: photographic or glossy paper is preferred for this (but it is more expensive). All of these items have been available at OfficeMax; they also have been available (cheaper) at Insight and buy.com.

• HP DesignJet 500PS. See http://www.hp.com/cposupport/plotters/support_doc/bpp03084.html. These are available direct from HP, or (cheaper) at Insight and buy.com, although not every item has always been available at the latter two places. Even better prices may be available from http://www.thenerds.net.
  • Ink cartridges: C4844A, C4911A, C4912A, C4913A; ballpark $40 each. You can get status of how much ink is left using the control panel on the printer.
  • Printheads: C4810A, C4811A, C4812A, C4813A. These do not need to be changed frequently!
  • Paper:
    • Basic High Gloss 42in by 100ft ($\sim$ $117) C8317A,
    • Basic Heavyweight Coated 42 x 100 ($\sim$ 45.99) C7925A,
    • Basic Bond 42x150 ($\sim$ 21.99) C7922A.

USB drives

TBD.

CDROM

Most computers come with an internal CDROM drive. After inserting a disk, the CDROM can be immediately accessed through the directory /misc/cdrom, as the device is auto-mounted. It should automatically dismount if it is not accessed for a short period of time. You can manually force a dismount (e.g. if you want to eject the disk), using: umount /misc/cdrom.

Writing CDROMs

Many, but not all, of the individual machines have CD writers. The easiest way to burn things to the CDROM is probably to find the menu items available through your window manager.

If this is not available, create a directory hierarchy that you want to be copied to the CDROM; the capacity of a CDROM disk is 650 Mbytes. Issue the command:

mkcd directory

to copy all of the files under the specified directory to the CDROM. This will take up to half an hour. The final step in the process compares the files on disk to those on the CDROM; if you see any error messages here, there may have been problems with the write (although sometimes you get errors here when everything is still fine).

DVDROM

Several machines have DVDROM readers. These are accessed just like the CDROMs, and in fact, the DVD readers also read regular CDROMs. On io, there is both a fast CDROM reader as well as a DVD reader (both located in the computer case). The CDROM is accessed through /misc/cdrom; the DVD is accessed through /misc/dvd. Other machines with DVDROM drives are aphrodite and maritimus.

floppies

Linux can read floppy disks, including those formatted by DOS/Windows. If you have a floppy drive, after inserting a disk, it can be immediately accessed through the directory /misc/floppy.

Tape drives

Linux supports many SCSI tape drives. Currently, we have one 8mm Exabyte drive and two 4mm DAT (one DDS3 and one DDS) drive installed on the machine astrotape, which is located in the downstairs computer room. It can be accessed through using normal UNIX tape commands (tar, mt, etc.). The Exabyte drive has a capacity of $\sim$ 8 Gby; the DAT DDS has a capacity of $\sim$ 4 Gby. The DAT DDS3 drive on astrotape has a 24 Gby capacity, and an even higher capacity DAT DDS4 drive on maritimus. Tape drive availability is summarized in the following table.

Tape drive	Host computer	Device name
Exabyte 8mm	astrotape	/dev/st? /dev/nst?
DAT 4mm (DDS)	astrotape	/dev/st? /dev/nst?
DAT 4mm (DDS3)	astrotape	/dev/st? /dev/nst?
DAT 4mm (DDS4)	maritimus	/dev/st0 /dev/nst0

The /dev/stn devices will automatically rewind after each access; the /dev/nstn will not rewind.

Occasionally, one may get I/O errors when trying to read tapes. One thing to check if this occurs is whether the block size is incorrectly set on the tape drive. In general, the tape drive block size should be set to 0, which means it should be able to adapt to whatever block size the tape was written with. You can check the tape drive setting using the command: mt -f device status, and you can change the blocksize (to 0) using: mt -f device setblk 0.