No printer?

[James Wilde]

Hi Tommy, and thanks for answering.  Rest inline.

On Dec 16, 2009, at 17:19 , Tommy Trussell wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:46 AM, James Wilde
> <james.wilde at sunde-wilde.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Dec 15, 2009, at 21:26 , James Wilde wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi, I feel incredibly stupid.
>>> 
>>> I am running GC 2.2.9 on a Mac.  I'm relatively new to the Mac.  I've been using 2.2.9 on linux before, and I remember printing out reports without a problem.
>>> 
>>> Now I wanted to print my first report on the Mac.  I have my trusty Brother laser printer as the default printer on the Mac, directly connected via USB.  But when I press the print button or choose File/Print Report, there is no default printer and I can't find anywhere to add one.  I've been in under GnuCash/ Preferences and there's nothing on the Printing tab except something about print date format, print block characters.
>>> 
>>> I checked the documentation and the FAQ but found nothing about how to configure the printer.  So if someone can give me a hint, I'd be very grateful.
>>> 
>> 
>> A little more information.
>> 
>> On the Mac I have virtualbox, in which I can run a Ubuntu 9-10 client.  On this client I have installed GC, and I can print reports.
>> 
>> The interesting thing is that this instance has TWO printers:  on the one hand my trusty Brother as above, on the other Print to File.
>> 
>> Now it's one thing that the Mac is not showing my laser printer, but why would Print to File also be missing from the printer list?
>> 
>> TIA
>> 
>> //James
> 
> I'm not familiar with virtualbox. What do you mean by an Ubuntu 9.10
> "client"? Is there a host machine elsewhere, or are you running Ubuntu
> 9.10 as a virtual instance under Mac OS on the same host?

Yes, Virtualbox is a Sun program which is functionally the same as VMWare.  My Mac is the host and I have a couple of Virtualbox clients, one running Windows 7, the other Ubuntu 9-10.  Since clients tend to run slowly and slow down everything else unless you have a shitload of RAM, I use these principally for testing functionality.

Previously I had a PC running Ubuntu 9-10, and I ran GC on that for several months.  Now I've finally migrated to a Mac.  I've installed GC 2.2.9 for Mac on the Mac and have fired it up, and I can confirm that I can use it and it seems to work fine.  Except that it doesn't show any printers, not even the Print to File "printer", and certainly not the Brother laser printer directly attached to the Mac.
> 
> It sounds like maybe cups isn't running on Ubuntu, or you haven't
> successfully configured virtualbox to see your hardware. Check to see
> if maybe something failed during the Ubuntu installation.

Cups is running fine on the Ubuntu virtual machine.  Cups uses the Brother printer running on the host (which as far as the Ubuntu client is concerned is a network printer) and can print out reports, and in the GC for linux instance I have running under the Ubuntu client I can see two printers, Brother and Print to File, and print to either of them - well, I haven't tested Print to File, but I expect it will work since the Brother printer does.

The thing is I want to use the Mac native version of GC and not have to fire up Virtualbox and Ubuntu every time I want to use GC.  So I would like to get the Mac version of GC showing at least one printer.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough before, but hope this clarifies my situation.

//James