I am a writer of stories, books and articles.
Not of code....
An 11 year old very underpriviledged orphan kid nearby was given an old box with some strange windows Longhorn OS on it. Smeone else gave him a Lexmark2320 printer. They wouldn't talk to each other and the OS would fall down more often than a bag lady.
So bright spark here tries to do his bit for humanity and says to him, " no worries, I will sort it for you, I will install Kubuntu and we dont have to break any laws or anything.... cool bananas! Plius you get free Office kit so you can write cv's for people in your little community in BushBuck Ridge and earn a little ching maybe and feel better about your life and your circumstances."
I should keep my mouth shut and never make eye contact with depressed kids.
So install kubuntu, thinking I am doing himself and myself a favour....this is what Ubuntu is about, right, in case anyone didn't know? I live in Ubuntu land, rural South Africa, on the edge of the Kruger Park. We invented the word....
Imagine my surprise when the lexmark still wouldn't work. CUPS are for drinking cheap wine from, or am I mistaken?
Imagine my horror to eventually learn that lexmark are a problem for Ubuntu!
Some smart aleck in town nearby told me..." It's Linux, chappie......you write your own drivers!"
"WOT", I said??!
No worries, I thought. I would just give him my little Canon i350 and take his Lexmark.
Except that Kubuntu in it's CUPS has no knowledge of the Canon either....... effin' great!!!
So here we stand, midst the lions and antelope, with expensive and sporadic internet access, a teary snot-nosed kid and I; he wanting to get started with writing CV's on OpenOffice for a small income, and me wondering what the hell I have gotten myself into.
I dont want to have to go find a cracked windows XP somewhere. I also don't want to have to start a new career as a developer or whatever just to get this kid up and running....
I just want to know where I can go to to download a driver file for this wretched printer, tell the OS to install it, and get on with my life, writing talkin' animal stories for kids who also don't want to spend their lives writing endless reams of code, and would rather just listen to the birdies and wonder what the giraffe is saying to the hippo?
You get me, right? Not everyone wants to be a programmer, not so? I now get what Gates is about, and he deserves his Gazillions if what he has done for humanity is make it possible for bumpkins like me to just use computers, and not have to have intimate knowledge of their intimates, so to speak, in order to write a letter.
I mean, if I wanted to create a new user I would give him something in a little baggie, maybe, and ensure tha my number was on his phone, right? And beans grow well after the first rains, and a kernel is like a seed, that I ought to be out planting right now....
So......any ideas, suggestions, places where I can get help from?
I promise to go away and never bother anyone here again; you folks are so much more than welcome to, like, really 'get into it' if that's what you all want to do; if I can get this machine out of my house and back into the bush.
I wait with bated, and faintly wine scented breath.......
Not of code....
An 11 year old very underpriviledged orphan kid nearby was given an old box with some strange windows Longhorn OS on it. Smeone else gave him a Lexmark2320 printer. They wouldn't talk to each other and the OS would fall down more often than a bag lady.
So bright spark here tries to do his bit for humanity and says to him, " no worries, I will sort it for you, I will install Kubuntu and we dont have to break any laws or anything.... cool bananas! Plius you get free Office kit so you can write cv's for people in your little community in BushBuck Ridge and earn a little ching maybe and feel better about your life and your circumstances."
I should keep my mouth shut and never make eye contact with depressed kids.
So install kubuntu, thinking I am doing himself and myself a favour....this is what Ubuntu is about, right, in case anyone didn't know? I live in Ubuntu land, rural South Africa, on the edge of the Kruger Park. We invented the word....
Imagine my surprise when the lexmark still wouldn't work. CUPS are for drinking cheap wine from, or am I mistaken?
Imagine my horror to eventually learn that lexmark are a problem for Ubuntu!
Some smart aleck in town nearby told me..." It's Linux, chappie......you write your own drivers!"
"WOT", I said??!
No worries, I thought. I would just give him my little Canon i350 and take his Lexmark.
Except that Kubuntu in it's CUPS has no knowledge of the Canon either....... effin' great!!!
So here we stand, midst the lions and antelope, with expensive and sporadic internet access, a teary snot-nosed kid and I; he wanting to get started with writing CV's on OpenOffice for a small income, and me wondering what the hell I have gotten myself into.
I dont want to have to go find a cracked windows XP somewhere. I also don't want to have to start a new career as a developer or whatever just to get this kid up and running....
I just want to know where I can go to to download a driver file for this wretched printer, tell the OS to install it, and get on with my life, writing talkin' animal stories for kids who also don't want to spend their lives writing endless reams of code, and would rather just listen to the birdies and wonder what the giraffe is saying to the hippo?
You get me, right? Not everyone wants to be a programmer, not so? I now get what Gates is about, and he deserves his Gazillions if what he has done for humanity is make it possible for bumpkins like me to just use computers, and not have to have intimate knowledge of their intimates, so to speak, in order to write a letter.
I mean, if I wanted to create a new user I would give him something in a little baggie, maybe, and ensure tha my number was on his phone, right? And beans grow well after the first rains, and a kernel is like a seed, that I ought to be out planting right now....
So......any ideas, suggestions, places where I can get help from?
I promise to go away and never bother anyone here again; you folks are so much more than welcome to, like, really 'get into it' if that's what you all want to do; if I can get this machine out of my house and back into the bush.
I wait with bated, and faintly wine scented breath.......
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