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OpenOffice.org 2.2 released
OpenOffice.org 2.2 released
Posted Mar 30, 2007 13:29 UTC (Fri) by muwlgr (guest, #35359)In reply to: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released by beoba
Parent article: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released
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.
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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.