<div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">My actual printer server runs Hoary, and it only gets security updates. No matter how much I fiddle and twead, this one machine is _always_ ready.</blockquote><div> Another way to solve the problem is to buy a print server (Netgear sells some). Fancy stuff: you plug it into a printer on one side and on your LAN on the other and voila. Never upgraded, never broken, offers services to everybody on LAN. I guess I will end up buying this or a LAN-enabled printer. Better than hair loss through configuration file fighting. </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">As for the rest of your statement: I know OS X very well, too, and I sort of like it. Maybe it's just a question of habit, but I always found OS X network configuration a much harder task than editing my settings in /etc/younameit by hand.</blockquote><div> Thing is: if you are already familiar with configuration files you know exactly where to go and what to do for your settings. Otherwise you are left with a zillion questions: How many configuration files do I need to edit to get my modifications? Where are they located? Are they all mandatory? Optional? What are the syntax rules in this file? How do you comment out stuff with this syntax? Is there an order to follow to modify these files? Do I need to tell programs that I modified config files? How do I do this? If I later find a GUI to modify the same configuration, will this overwrite my handwritten settings? Do I need to make sure environment variables (or lack thereof) will not override the settings I am trying to modify? Is there a user-specific file to take into account, too? If I do anything wrong, where would I get an error message about it? I am not even talking about obscure variable names and meaning inside configuration files. Well... you know what I mean. We have all been in this situation. Point is: config files are great for fine-tuning but a real hell to get through when you just need the damn thing to work on short notice. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">No root user? visudo, groupadd admin, vi /etc/group, there you go:oD</blockquote><div> What about: sudo passwd root </div></div> -- Chosechu