Computer troubles
Thursday, 19 October 2017 18:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zimenaRemember my post about my printer not wanting to print anything with black ink some ten days ago?
Yes, that.
That was only the beginning...
Of course I tried to fix the printer issue in various ways, but nothing would work. However, as the coloured inks were still working, I was hoping to use up those before buying a new printer. I had to give up that plan, though, because so much of what I print is from PDF format, and then I cannot easily change the font colour something other than black.
Well... of course getting a new printer IS very nice, I have to admit that, too. After having had HP printers for several years, I chose a Canon Pixma TS8051 this time. Can I just say that I love how it prints - and I love that there's a rear paper feeder (for photo paper and other things that come in "weird" sizes, as you can set the size each time you load a new type of paper) as well as the usual paper tray for A4 sheets. I also tried to print things like photos, and they come out looking really nice - and much nicer than with my old printer - so I'm happy about that, of course.
Getting this far wasn't easy, though...
Getting the printer to connect to my network was easy enough, but the troubles started when I wanted to run the setup software, which was supposed to also download a bunch of other software - for scanning, photo printing and whatnot. The setup program simply would not run. Or rather, it seemed to try to open and then immediately shut down again. In the end I tricked it with sudo - found the path to the setup program inside the package, then dragged that to Terminal and tried to run it with sudo. And... voilà!
For a moment, I felt a little proud of coming up with the solution myself.
Well, when I had everything properly set up with the printer, I couldn't stop thinking of how I had to run a simple setup program in this way, and somehow I got worried that I had screwed up something with the permissions on my computer when I installed Linux some time ago. Long story short: I'm not using my Linux install much, so I decided to remove it, and to merge those partitions to my main one again.
Bad move. Very bad move.
After some thinking, I think I've worked out what happened. Back when I installed Linux, I most have put its boot manager on the Linux partition. Then that boot manager must somehow have become the main choice? So, when I deleted everything on the Linux partition, I also screwed up macOS boot process, and all I got was a huge stop sign on the screen when I tried to boot into macOS, too.
Imagine my mood at this.
In the end I had to reinstall macOS - so I'm on High Sierra now, because that's what I got at reinstall. Not only that; I also had to reinstall it from the Internet, because my Recovery HD partition had somehow disappeared earlier in the summer as well - probably also in connection with some of my Linux Adventures, but I can't quite work out how.
Luckily nothing important was lost, because I have nice backups in Time Machine to restore from, but it's taken me 2-3 days to get everything back to normal.
Now I'm here, though. And if you're also still with me in this post after all this Mac-babble, then thank you - you are awesome :)
Yes, that.
That was only the beginning...
Of course I tried to fix the printer issue in various ways, but nothing would work. However, as the coloured inks were still working, I was hoping to use up those before buying a new printer. I had to give up that plan, though, because so much of what I print is from PDF format, and then I cannot easily change the font colour something other than black.
Well... of course getting a new printer IS very nice, I have to admit that, too. After having had HP printers for several years, I chose a Canon Pixma TS8051 this time. Can I just say that I love how it prints - and I love that there's a rear paper feeder (for photo paper and other things that come in "weird" sizes, as you can set the size each time you load a new type of paper) as well as the usual paper tray for A4 sheets. I also tried to print things like photos, and they come out looking really nice - and much nicer than with my old printer - so I'm happy about that, of course.
Getting this far wasn't easy, though...
Getting the printer to connect to my network was easy enough, but the troubles started when I wanted to run the setup software, which was supposed to also download a bunch of other software - for scanning, photo printing and whatnot. The setup program simply would not run. Or rather, it seemed to try to open and then immediately shut down again. In the end I tricked it with sudo - found the path to the setup program inside the package, then dragged that to Terminal and tried to run it with sudo. And... voilà!
For a moment, I felt a little proud of coming up with the solution myself.
Well, when I had everything properly set up with the printer, I couldn't stop thinking of how I had to run a simple setup program in this way, and somehow I got worried that I had screwed up something with the permissions on my computer when I installed Linux some time ago. Long story short: I'm not using my Linux install much, so I decided to remove it, and to merge those partitions to my main one again.
Bad move. Very bad move.
After some thinking, I think I've worked out what happened. Back when I installed Linux, I most have put its boot manager on the Linux partition. Then that boot manager must somehow have become the main choice? So, when I deleted everything on the Linux partition, I also screwed up macOS boot process, and all I got was a huge stop sign on the screen when I tried to boot into macOS, too.
Imagine my mood at this.
In the end I had to reinstall macOS - so I'm on High Sierra now, because that's what I got at reinstall. Not only that; I also had to reinstall it from the Internet, because my Recovery HD partition had somehow disappeared earlier in the summer as well - probably also in connection with some of my Linux Adventures, but I can't quite work out how.
Luckily nothing important was lost, because I have nice backups in Time Machine to restore from, but it's taken me 2-3 days to get everything back to normal.
Now I'm here, though. And if you're also still with me in this post after all this Mac-babble, then thank you - you are awesome :)
(no subject)
Date: Thursday, 19 October 2017 23:36 (UTC)I would be lost in Linux, since I've never used it, and although I could probably walk my way through installing a partition, I have to say it's been so long -- and I wouldn't have a reason to do so. So I am impressed by your mad skillz.
I'm a little lazy -- I can do hardware, but I hate it, so I usually rely on other people to do it for me. I am going to have to get a new keyboard and mouse, and at that point I'm going to have to clear off the desk entirely, and in such case, I may spring for a new desk. I love the look of this, but it was a PITA to put it together, and one leg support has never been right. It's reasonably comfortable, but now that I work from home half the time, I want something which takes up less room.
(no subject)
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 14:57 (UTC)Thanks for your warm words. And about getting a new desk, I can see how that would be nice. But just one question - if you work from home, wouldn't a BIGGER desk be better, not a smaller one? I imagine that if you use it for work, you would need more space for your stuff?
(no subject)
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 12:37 (UTC)Anyway, it's great that you didn't lose anything important in the end of your adventure. Yay for backups!
(no subject)
Date: Friday, 20 October 2017 14:55 (UTC)I don't hate Linux, btw. From what I've seen, it's still quite fascinating to me... BUT it's not useful, because I have all my stuff in macOS and I have no intention of moving away from there.