Novell OES2 SP1 is now out of Beta. In conjunction with this release we’re also very pleased with the stability of PaperCut on OES and are now happy to support releases from version 8.5 build 6739 in production environments. e.g. PaperCut is now also out of Beta!

We’ve had no show-stopper bugs raised in the past 2 weeks. I must say however we’ve had lots of good feedback. The list of bugs may be short, but the requests for features is growing fast . We’re busy preparing for the up coming version 9 release. After I’ve helped get this out the door, I’ll be moving back on to Novell features with the immediate goals of:

• 64-bit support (we currently only support i686)
• Documentation for setting up a Novell OES system as a Secondary Server
• Document and test running on an OES cluster

I’m also working to ensuring that the Novell OES releases remain in sync with all other platforms and hence benefit from the new general features that will be added to version 9.0. Once again, a bit thanks to all the organizations that have tested. We’re been very pleased with the support the Novell community has offered both in terms of testing and in sales. We’ve already had a few of the test sites commit and purchase licenses even while PaperCut was still in Beta! A bit thanks to all the testers!

Cheers,

Chris

A quick thanks to all the beta testers helping us with testing our new PaperCut version for iPrint on OES Linux. We’ve had a series of bugs/suggests reported and I’ve actioned most of these in today’s release. The 8.5.6708 release contains:

• Support for a various username formats seen on Novell networks (e.g. username@macadd, .username.domain, username\domain).
• Improved auto detection of eDirectory LDAP settings.
• Added warning if installing on any 64-bit OS. The beta release is currently targeting 32-bit only but we’ll support 64-bit on final release. (We’re just trying to minimize variables during the beta program!)
• Documented the need to open ports 9191 and 9192 in the firewall. OES has strict firewall defaults!
• Miscellaneous documentation improvements that should make installation a little easier and/or more “the Novell way”.

The remaining suggestion not actioned in this release is the auto-registration of printers. At the moment a single print job is required on each printer to trigger of the registration of the printer. I’m conducting some R&D in this area and hope to have a better solution soon.

You’ll find the latest release on the PaperCut NG downloads page.

Thanks again to all the testers and please continue to email me with your ideas (and dare I say, “bugs”!).

Another update for the sites participating in the Novell OES Linux beta program. It looks like we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to get proper print quota on iPrint. The iPrint update required to run PaperCut will now not be available until next week. Novell will be undertaking the last validation tests on Friday and assuming they all pass, they’ll be looking at supplying us with the update on Monday. The build is going to be based on the iPrint Beta 4 release. I’ll keep you all posted and let you know if there are any further delays.

Last week we announced the start of the official beta testing period for PaperCut on Novell. Novell is our last remaining platform so it’s great to see this finally in beta. We already have close to 50 sites that have contacted us expressing eagerness to participate in the beta testing program. There is a lot of excitement out there and a lost of organizations are happy to finally see best of breed print auditing and print control on iPrint.

As discussed in this page, I am going to post updates, news and announcements in our developer blog. One of the immediate announcements is with respect to the availability of the new iPrint release from Novell. PaperCut targets a yet-to-be-released iPrint version. This is a new version of iPrint scheduled for official release in Novell OES Linux 2 SP1 and includes the API hooks we required to get PaperCut working and cooperating with iPrint. Dean and Devon at Novell are working through the internal procedures at the moment so all beta test sites have early access to this iPrint update. The plan was to have this available last week but it’s been delayed. Dean is aiming to have all approved and available on Thursday the 21st.

In the meantime please regularly check this Blog for any news. Also if you have any questions or what a sneak peek, please check out the announcement and/or feel free to email me at support.