Newbie Frustration: What am I overlooking?

[RMB319]

I apologize for being an absolute beginner regarding all things Pi-related and Debian/Raspbian-related. I’m enjoying learning…but right now I’m at the mercy of the users who say, “Type *this* and then type *this*” to update, load software, etc.

The crux: I cannot seem to get past Step 1 when it comes to setting up my Retro-Printer with my Pi 3. After the RP boots, I query it for its IP address. It returns an address, but it doesn’t seem valid because I cannot log in on either the Web or through Termius on my iPad. (Surprise: I’ve only got Termius because of the RP’s instructions to log in via SSH, so I know even less about that than about the Pi!) It may be a drawback that I’ve been iPad-only for the last few years in my work as a full-time freelance journalist, so my desktop skills may be a bit rusty. (Before that, I was Mac for six years; MS-DOS/Windows for the 30+ years before that.)

When it boots, the RP rolls statements across the screen that suggest it’s establishing a connection. But it is not showing up on my router. Is there anything I can do from the command line to change that?

After an hour or two of reconfiguring what I could, multiple reboots, etc., I did physically connect a USB printer to the RP so I could see what would happen if I just tried printing something from my TRS-80 Model 100. Although the green light flickered, as if receiving information, nothing more happened.

I realize there are a lot of variables at play here, so I’m not really expecting a definitive diagnosis. I’m just looking for any kind of detail that might not have been explained in the manual (which I’ve gone over repeatedly) or something that people “in the know” would know automatically.

Thanks for any advice anyone would care to offer!

Bob

[RWAP]

If you can get a command line on the Raspberry Pi, you can enter the command

Code: Select all

hostname -l

to confirm the IP address but it is concerning that the router does not show up the IP address - there should be a bit of hardware called "Retro-Printer"

You can actually also connect using SSH using retro-printer as the name of the connection (instead of the IP address).

Unfortunately, until you can connect to the Retro-Printer, the USB printer will not work as you need to install it in CUPS and set it as the default printer.

[RWAP]

Having spoken with the OP - it is clear that he was trying to use a wireless connection to connect to the network.

Unforunately, this is not something we can set up beforehand as you need to edit the configuration files on the Raspberry Pi to set the SSID and password for the network following the guide at: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... ess-cli.md

There must be an easier way.... (any suggestions?)