Damn.

A VAR keeps sending me Dell T100 servers to configure with Debian. Problem is, every time Intel changes their SATA controller Dell incorporates it in the T100 model. This usually forces me to move to the next issue of Debian.

I was perfectly happy with Lenny (well, I was perfectly happy with Etch until I was sent a new Dell T100) but I was forced to go to Squeeze.

As usual, big problem with Digi Realport. Three days back and forth exchanging emails with Digi. Their install instructions never work, but I can usually figure a way. This time they finally suggested a file that might be needed. Wrong filename, but I figured out the right one. Their instructions still didn't work but mine now did. Serial ports at last.

Sent my full procedure off to Digi.

So I finished stuff up ready to ship - with one last thing: create a cups printer named dumdum that prints to /dev/null - but all I could get out of cups was "Access to Server Denied", and similar messaages.

I checked files, examined the cupsd.conf. put drivers in the right place, etc. Restarted cups - no messages but no complaints. Still "Access Denied".

Things looked a bit different up in /usr/lib/cups/backends, so I decided to apt-get remove cups and reinstall. apt-get said, "cups not installed".

Sheesh! And I'd checked "Print Server" in the install procedure! Somehow it installed most of the cups structure but not the daemons.

Many hours I can't bill for - but at least tomorrow we can ship this machine and invoice - but I'll be a while yet updating my documentation.