OpenOffice.org 2.2 released [LWN.net]

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 29, 2007 22:53 UTC (Thu) by mikov (subscriber, #33179)
In reply to: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released by dskoll
Parent article: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Thanks for the detailed replies. I am very happy that it is working great for you - I am being completely honest here. I hope more and more businesses take this road. I hope our business does too, eventually :-)

I still have strong reservations, though. Perhaps if the company is running Linux from the get go, as apparently yours is, with a very high ratio of engineers to "regular" employees, and new people just merge in one by one, it is much easier. However switching from Windows to Linux is different, because the shortcomings of Linux on the desktop become immediately visible by comparison.

For example, I am a little surprised about just being able to plug printers and scanners in - this is simply not true for the devices and the OSes I am using - the latter being Sarge and Edgy Eft. I don't want to make generalizations about _all printers_. However the latest printer I had to get working under Linux doesn't quite have the same options and convenience in CUPS as in Windows, is a little slower under Linux (god knows why), etc.

Same with a scanner, which in Windows comes bundled with an OCR application, which works surprisingly well. Better than the apps in Debian and Ubuntu, anyway.

The list of devices and problems can go on. Flash programmers, tools that go with them, embedded compilers, CAD applications, etc.

Each of these problems individually can be solved with some creativity. Either by finding Linux-compatible replacement, or by using Wine, Qemu, etc. Often the solution is not perfect. However when you take all the problems combined, it becomes an unsurmountable task. It often doesn't make business sense to waste time and money on solving it, when
a $400 computer with Windows is all it takes.

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OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 1:31 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Printers and scanners have never been a problem. We have three printers (an HP LaserJet, an HP all-in-one fax/scanner/printer and a Samsung printer) and they all just worked out of the box.

Naturally, it's easier to start running Linux than to switch from Windows --- it's called Vendor Lock-In. We switched from a proprietary PBX to Asterisk only after our irritation with the proprietary PBX drove us to the breaking point. My guess is that Windows lock-in is far more powerful than PBX lock-in, so there's much more difficulty in changing.

But that's OK. I see our use of Linux as a competitive advantage, and if our competitors are stuck running Windows... :-)

I hear your complaints about the "little" problems that add up and are easier to solve. The best way around those is to avoid the problems in the first place -- make sure you buy Linux-compatible hardware and choose Linux-friendly vendors. And the "cheap" solution of switching to Windows will have many other costs in the long run.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 1:43 UTC (Fri) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link]

CUPS: http://localhost:631

I've found that, consider that I've never had to manually install drivers for my printer (just select it off a list), I'd argue that things are easier in Linux, I just click a couple relevant links and select my printer from a pulldown list and it works. However, I had to know the above address before I could do that..

There will always be specialized tools for which there is no Linux equivalent. Are those something that we should concentrate on, or should we instead aim for the common things that are useful to the non-specialists? If we get those mainstream areas down pat, I don't see why the specialized tools wouldn't end up migrating of their own accord.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 13:29 UTC (Fri) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link]

Read ESR's article about CUPS, then read it again.
Then try to set up a printer that is not in your CUPS lists.
Like, old parallel-port printer that is not detectable by IEEE1284.
Then run system-config-printer if you are using redhat-derived distro,
and wonder why cups-web frontend on port 631 and system-config-printer both offer each own different list of manufacturers and models.
Then change some checkboxes through cups-web and wonder how well it discards your manual changes you have made to cups.conf before.
Then announce your printer to the network by IPP or Zeroconf.
Then set up access control. Could you get accounts info somewhere from LDAP or so ?

Printing is still an abomination. Even under Windows not everything is smooth enough, not saying about Unix/Linux. GUI and Web frontends to Unix printer administration only make the problem worse.

Of course, for local/personal desktop case, all warts are more-less licked up and masked. But that's not enterprise scenario.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 15:23 UTC (Fri) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]

That article was written several years ago, and things have improved rapidly since. Last month, I dropped a Xerox 6120 on my network (a printer not available in the configuration lists for my Ubuntu Breezy server) fired up the GUI and defined it using a custom PPD file with no trouble whatsoever.

Now, that's a "personal" printer with a network (er, "enterprise") interface, so I don't know how your hedging applies here. Is that proof that there are no remaining problems in CUPS? Of course not. But it is evidence that perhaps your argument isn't as absolute as you might have thought. Honestly, it sounds mostly like meaningless FUD to me. Do you have any specific bugs to report?

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 19:03 UTC (Fri) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link]

Nice example. This printer might even dispense its PPD by http or IPP, or Windows drivers to Windows clients by SMB, as it is pretty much a server host by itself. Today it is not difficult to stuff an entire OS in it. And so, CUPS on your desktop is merely a client relaying jobs by IPP or JetDirect/9100 to the remote host. Not a hard task even for CUPS.

What I was trying to mean, is mostly related to locally-connected printers (LPT/COM/USB) which are then shared by CUPS itself. It is much, much more creative and enterprising area for poor self-admins trying to make this work.

Btw, are you getting the full DPI from your printer ? The same as from under Windows ? What about color management and other features usually offered fully only on Windows driver ? Is PPD enough to describe all bells&whistles and provide the user with convenient access to them ?
And yes, compiled binaries distributed by some manufacturers are really excellent in crashing :>

I hope you would agree that there are printers without Ethernet port, and there are distributions other than Ubuntu, and there are existing businesses built on plain dot-matrix printers connected to plain DOS boxes and printing in the blank forms without any Postscript. Trying to migrate these to Unix, we get so many components in the printing path that it is not easy to make them do what we want without some deep research.

Those who learned traditional lpd/printap printing system, would note that CUPS tries to mask the textual&commandline nature of the whole configuration process, and that only makes things worse.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Apr 2, 2007 10:33 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Those who learned traditional lpd/printap printing system, would note that CUPS tries to mask the textual&commandline nature of the whole configuration process, and that only makes things worse.

CUPS comes with perfectly reasonable command-line administration utilities, including one to set up new printers from scratch, given only a PPD file and where it is connected.

Anselm

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Apr 11, 2007 0:33 UTC (Wed) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

In the past, I configured BSD lpr, System V lp, AIX's lp variant, and lpr-ng.

CUPS is easy to configure, compared to the old systems. It has much better command-line tools than any of these other systems; it's configuration files are easier to read and to change, and that "textual interface" is not hidden at all; it's well documented.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Apr 17, 2007 18:33 UTC (Tue) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link]

Then why CUPS introduction starts from "open http://localhost:631 in your browser" ? Why RedHat-derived distros still offer "system-config-printer" tool ? Both these interfaces are worse than unusable (except for simplest and most straightforward cases). CUPS docs should start from CLI-tools overview and always give CLI equivalent for every action done in "convenient" WEB/GUI. Else there would be no end of Eric Raymond-likes with their articles of you know what content.