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There ya go. No need to thank me.

I would like to be able to scan from our multi-function printer to any of the computers in my house.

Have you looked into the network options for Sane on Linux? I have a HP PSC 2400 shared between 10 computers in my office. Scanning is shared via Sane and printing is shared via Cups. It works out really nice.

Printing is special? I rarely (read: never) use X11 apps in OS X, but I'd just assumed that since OS X's printing system is CUPS, which is become the de facto printer queue on Unix-like systems, and includes analogues of older tools (lpr, lpq, etc.), that printing under X11 would Just Work (assuming, of course, that you've set up your printer in OS X). Am I wrong?

CUPS is Common Unix Printing System. Essentially its a modern replacment for lpd (but it can do a lot more than lpd, including being lpd :-p ).

CUPS works perfectly fine under Solaris 10. The usbprn driver allows you to use USB connected printers on your Ultra 20 box.

talk to the cups people about that http://www.cups.org/

This is exactly the same situation you'd have with Linux or BSD: OS X uses the popular CUPS printing system.

That's exactly what I like about OS X. Where it makes sense to do so (Kerberos, CUPS, KAME, etc) OS X uses familiar open source tools.

• ClamAV virus definition distribution model (use of incremental updates, dns txt field checks for new updates, automatic, etc..) -- compare this to the weekly (!) updates of Symantec (or manually updating slightly more frequently) or even some of the "download a big chunk from a centralized location" method of commercial competitors.
• BitTorrent
• So many things in KDE its insane.. (just check out all the awards, including Software Innovation of the Year - CeBit!)
• Plone, Zope, Typo3 - These content management systems lead the way for both commercial and opensource.. so much innovation going on here
• CUPS - While not glamerous, I have setup lots of print servers and the flexibility and modularlity of CUPS (in my experience) is unmatched.
• The spam fighters: greylisting, spamassassin, amavisd, postfix, dnsrbl, etc.. developed under or made popular due to opensource.. I have yet to come across _any_ non-FOSS solution that comes close to the success and accuracy of the OSS tools for spam filtering

I had to do this the other day, and found it very quickly in the documentation, by searching for JetDirect: like this.

I know that doesn't prove that the docs are great, but the example you wanted is right there.

Personally I think CUPS is great. The Web interface isn't perfect, and I always forget the port, but it makes managing jobs and printers very easy. Plus all modern Linux systems will easily pick up the CUPS server over the network and allow me to manage jobs that way.

Use whatever's convenient for you, as in whatever works. I have an XP laptop for work with customers, a FreeBSD file & print server at home, a M0n0wall firewall, a second playing-around drive for my laptop with Debian Woody, a couple of live filesystem CDs with Auditor and other similar security-relevant distros as well as a Knoppix CD for recovery, and I'm buying a Powerbook soon to get real work done (network security analysis type stuff, PITA under Windows.)

OS evangelism is stupid, and you have some good points about usability.

As for your printing woes, please do have a look at CUPS--it's the mutt's nutts for UNIX printing as far as I'm concerned.

I'd never paid attention to CUPS until Apple slid it under my Mac OS X installation. Once I took a look at it, I really came to appreciate it. Now I put it on all my UNIX boxes. I've even convinced my workplace to adopt it.

Once the software is installed, it's dead easy to set up, especially if you're using a recent PostScript-capable printer. Most recent printers support Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) directly on their network card. CUPS speaks IPP and PostScript natively. If you set up Service Location Protocol (SLP) support, you don't even have to configure the printer -- it configures itself. There's a reason Apple adopted this software!

Add the gimp-print driver package, and you can print to just about anything.

It's a far sight better than dealing with the various filters in BSD lpr, and immeasurably better than Solaris' print subsystem.

Go to www.cups.org, click on Documentation, and read the Software Admin guide. Optionally, read the software Users manual later on. It's not short, but it's pretty clear and does detail the steps involved in building, installing, and configuring. CUPS is a complicated system, and you can't really get it with just a 1-page howto. That's like saying "I want a short, clearly written explanation on how to write assembly code". Sure, there are just a few assembler commands - but you won't get the most out of it unless you understand how the stuff works... :) That's kindof a drawback to Linux for those who wanna "click and go" - but then, those people probably should use one of the common distros that already has CUPS installed and has a wizard for configuring the printers (I prefer SuSE in that regard, but anyting in a shiny box should do that for you). If you're running Slackware, then you *expect* to have to read some docs. ;)

IBM Public License, Version 1.0

This is a free software license but it is incompatible with the GPL. The IBM Public License is incompatible with the GPL because it has various specific requirements that are not in the GPL. For example, it requires certain patent licenses be given that the GPL does not require. (We don't think those patent license requirements are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.)

By the way, that same FSF page says the same about IBM's other open source license, the Common Public License, used in Eclipse.

I hope that a future version of the GPL will allow LGPL-style linking with code covered by GPL-incompatible "free software" licenses in cases where no proprietary software is linked in or perhaps that a future version of the GPL will address software patent problems in a way that is compatible with the IBM Public License and the Apache 2 License.

In the meantime, to me, the advantages of Postfix are less than the disadvantages of the obstacles to future code recycling. If the incompatabilities could be fixed by a change to either the GPL or the IPL, and if enough of the hype about postfix proved to be real, I would probably switch to postfix.

I know I am a statistically insignificant sample, but there are others, mostly developers, who care about being able to copy code between free software projects in general and GPL compatability in particular. So, Postfix gain that much more usage and support if and when this incompatability is resolved, such as, for the short term, by adding some exceptions for the GPL, as the CUPS project did.

I feel exactly the same way. I gave up and used LPRng instead, but I still have not got postscript printing working properly with one printer.

Make the web sites look better!

that many of the most popular applications do not follow [their supporting desktop environment's human interface guidelines] is the problem.

Have you reported such inconsistencies to the maintainers?

grandmother-proof means you just use the most basic driver that works, and offer the chance to switch later through a config panel.

You mean 640x480 pixels, 16 colors? First impression in this case is that "Linux looks ugly."

Perhaps what linux truly needs is a common print control that sits between the application and the printer driver.

Isn't CUPS, the Common *n?x Printing System, supposed to do that? The thing holding it back is that HP and Canon have so far neglected to put working CUPS drivers on the discs bundled with their retail inkjet printers.

and then leave it up to the specific driver translation as necessary. hell, use HP PCL if they'll let you.

And if the printer manufacturer refuses to publish such a "specific driver", then what?

and the transmission standard dictates the file access protocols

Some cameras look like standard storage devices; others don't. Microtech Scanmaker 4850 flatbed scanners definitely don't.

Gimp is good but the default setup for the interface does not lead a new user to the logical conclusion that if i want to edit a picture i should run 'GIMP'.

Microsoft Paint is good but the default setup for the interface does not lead a new user to the logical conclusion that if i want to edit a picture i should run 'Microsoft Paint'. To Joe Sixpack, "paint" is what makes his house or car look a particular color. The expansion of "GIMP", on the other hand, contains "image manipulation". What would you suggest instead that isn't already taken as a trademark?

if the analogy of root and 'head of household' works - then why don't the interfaces reflect that?

Because I haven't yet suggested such an analogy to developers of desktop environments. Whom would I contact for this?

i think the entire concept of root/administrator is something the user shouldn't be asked to understand in detail.

And then you go on to explain sudo. Your gripe lies with the distribution makers that don't implement sudo transparently the way Mac OS X does.

and i'm not linux bashing.

I understand. I see no better way to bring out points for a system's developers to concentrate on than well-reasoned, justified, polite discussion of the faults of the system. If you have a better idea of how a human interface for a GNU/Linux environment should be designed, go right ahead and put up a web page about it.

C'mon tr, you should know better than this. A quick dig on the CUPS website would quickly reveal an overview page detailing a raft of features that differentiate it from a standard LPR set up. Here's a brief run down of some of the feaures provided:

Cross platform system for network printing (did you know that CUPS is available for Windows as well as OS X, *BSD and Linux?).

The ability for printers to shared in such a way that a remote machine can automatically discover and print to a remote printer without having expliclty been configured to see it (Windows has been doing this for years. It's good to see this simplicity spreading elsewhere) while still announcing the capabilities of that printer.

Support for many (non postscript) backends that other printing systems may not (including things like samba for printers shared via Windows).

Queueing systems so that you can set documents to be printed to the first available printer on a network.

If your printer is non postscript (which many are), configuring CUPS may be a whole lot easier than trying to set up a magicfilter chain to do the right thing.

Sure, in your case perhaps editing printcap was "better and easier" but that doesn't mean that choice shouldn't be there for those not so fortunate to have a postscript printer, need sophisticated queing or have to set up a dozens of computers to print.

Apple switched to CUPS, actually to get a much larger driver-base than the current one. Some were left out in the cold, but I think they can live with it. For an older Epson A1-printer, I had to install GIMP-Print and ESP, but then it works great ... I couldn't use the printer in OSX at all before the change to CUPS.

Novell? People still use that? :)

Anyway, I haven't used Novell in over a decade, but my understanding is that nowadays it speaks the standard Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). Mac OS X 10.2's printing system is based on CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, which speaks IPP natively. A quick Google search indicates that you ought to be able to just hand OS X the correct IPP URL, such as "IPP://username:password@<server>/ipps/<printer >" to talk to Novell.

Of course, again, if one goes with a proprietary print protocol as opposed to the RFC-standard protocols, of course one should expect interoperability issues.

I serve printers from samba boxes to WinXP and W2k clients. I do not like dealing with setting up print queues on unix (unix printing and modem handling are evil, created by spawns of satan to make systems administrators miserable for all eternity), and I don't like Samba's way of dealing with them. It's still a bit too black-magic-swing-a-cat-over-your-head-at-midnight -y for my tastes when I need it to work in a hurry.

I've found CUPS to be a magnificent way of dealing with this; the combination of Samba, Unix, and WinXP/2k actually deals with printers very nicely over IPP.

DVI output from a DVD player? What kind of CUPS driver do you need for this thing? But more importantly, how much paper would you need?

If you have an old pc to spare, go smoothwall. If you decide you don't like it, change it. There are a LOT of Linux based firewall packages out there for FREE...
Smoothwall (as most Nix FW paks) will run on obsolete hardware quite well. Mine is running on a Pentium 90mhz like a charm. There's a 500meg hard drive in there, it only needs 100megs but more is better because I setup a 300meg cache.

It also has the ability to use transparent anonymous proxy too... Another neat and handy feature...

Also, you could take an old pc and load a stripped down version of Linux on it and run CUPS http://www.cups.org/ on it. Then set all your PC's to print to the CUPS server via your lan. Hang as many printers on it as you like.

As a matter of fact, you could even share your printers with your friends. My neighbor can print to my laserjet with IPP. We both use Linux, CUPS and cable modems. Very easy to share my printer that way..
I don't keep the port open normally so he calls me when he wants to print and I open the port, he prints, I close the port back down..

Did you know that the toilet paper printer runs a low paperwidth/high pulp version of CUPS called CUP?

(go ahead, spell it out...)

Ciryon

DNS: Take a look at PowerDNS. It can scale pretty well, and grab the data from LDAP/SQL/whatever. Works like a charm, and it's GPL as well. Takes huge loads nicely too, not to mention most other record types.

Samba: Samba works pretty nicely using LDAP, even though there are some quirks :) I agree with you there, Win2K wins there.

Microsoft printing is nothing when you get to use CUPS. CUPS is literally extremly easy to use, and very realiable!

Myself, I don't care much about unified configuration interfaces (as long as it's in /etc or symlinked to /etc it's fine by me), but you may have a point there as well.

Anyway, there's a long way to go, but I believe Linux/*BSD are catching up at rapid speed.

ahh the wonders of CUPS and SAMBA. Just download SMB Browser and you are in the run! (Assuming he has Jaguar, remember to click Windows sharing)

Printing can be a huge problem in the unix world.

Have you ever used CUPS? It is the easiest Linux print system I have ever set up. No more messing with /etc/printcap. It's got a beautiful web-based GUI and supports IPP.

Did you check in the FAQ?

I never really understood what made it better than straight up lpd. Perhaps one of you could enlighten me?

Michael Sweet [mike@easysw.com] of Easy Software Products said CUPS 1.1.18 will be released December 19, 2002 which addresses all of these issues (http://www.cups.org).

Mark J Cox (mjc@redhat.com) of Red Hat said the following:

"Red Hat Linux 7.3 and 8.0 ship with CUPS, however it is not enabled by default. We are currently working on producing erratum packages. When complete, these will be available along with our advisory. At the same time, users of the Red Hat Network will be able to update their systems
using the 'up2date' tool."

Richard Blanchard (rblanchard@apple.com) of Apple said the following:

"Affected Systems:
Mac OS X 10.2 - Mac OS X 10.2.2
Mac OS X Server 10.2 - Mac OS X Server 10.2.2

Mitigating Factors:

The described vulnerability can be remotely exploited only when Printer Sharing is enabled. Printer Sharing is not enabled by default on Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server.

Fixed in: Mac OS X 10.2.3 and Mac OS X Server 10.2.3"

FTP seems to be the only file sharing protocol properly implimented into every major OS.

Ugh. I wish. Windows XP still ships with completely broken FTP support, both on the command line and in the Explorer, just like every version since Windows 95. The explorer doesn't support ftp upload at all.

And even if it were properly implemented everywhere, FTP is a horrible protocol. A crufty and overdesigned two-channel connection setup, no security, only one generally supported authentication mode, and terrible error handling. FTP is a relic from the bronze age of the internet, and the sooner it goes away, the better.

NFS: Who uses THAT?

You're kidding, right?

Fortune 1000 companies use NFS. Universities use NFS. The linux kid in the next apartment from you probably uses NFS. I use NFS. We don't necessarily like it, but we use it.

Apple needs more of a unified printer driver architecture similar to the one used in windows.

They have one. Really. It's as unified as it's possible to get. They just need more/better drivers.

HFS+ already maintains data integrity quite well without a journal.

You are a funny, funny man.

How about CUPS?

I haven't used it yet, but it looks like the thing one needs.

I used Linux (RH 6.2, RH 7.1) for over 2 years, and I think it's a great OS. But it's not an OS that regular users can use like OSX 10.1.5 and 10.2. It's harder to be productive in Linux than OSX. I've said it before, but the fact remains that OSX is significantly easier to set up and use on a daily basis than Linux.

Want some reasons that regular people like OSX better? All the control panels are in one place and follow a consistent design. You can get Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash MX, and AOL for it.

Want some reasons that many geeks like us like OSX better? Excellent free development IDE (ProjectBuilder & InterfaceBuilder) that makes native apps with an audience of 5 million paying customers. Great commercial tools like BBEdit, Oracle, Sybase, SQLGrinder, and JBuilder Enterprise, that make developing for production systems as easy as developing on Linux.

The DVD issue is really a money issue. With Linux, there's no one willing to pay the money to legally play DVDs. When I worked at ZapMedia, we had a software-only DVD player working under Linux. We had to pay for it, but it can be done. With MacOSX, a small portion of the purchase price covers the R&D and licensing required to have this feature.

I have a 600MHz iBook/DVD that I carry to work every day. The office is all-Windows, but thanks to OSX's built-in SMB browser and CUPS printing support, I can do everything that the Windows machines can do. I might be able to make that happen with Linux using a compiler and a lot of free time, but my experience with Linux in the past is that it's not nearly as simple or obvious.

perhaps a tad off topic, but interesting none the less (also, i would like to say that i havent had any problems using epson printers in linux, in conjunction with the aforementioned gimp-print drivers, and the cups print server, as well as using cups to share the printer with windows machines via samba. ive used an epson C80 and an epson stylus photo 750 (ok, ill admit its not much of a sample, but its something...))

I'm considering trying to switch to Linux and CUPS sounds interesting. I also happen to be in need of a new printer (I currently have an HP 5L, but it jams if I insert more than one sheet at a time).

So, can anyone recommend a laser printer with high (or perfect) compatibility with Linux? I'm looking for one that can do at least 10 ppm and 600 dpi (though 1200 dpi would be preferable). Price is not so much a concern, though I would prefer one < $400.

My favorite change: the printing system was been replaced with CUPS, allowing Mac OS X users with printers from companies who enjoy screwing Mac users (*cough* Epson *cough*) to use Gimp-Print drivers. Hoorah, open source support!

How to install the Gimp-Print drivers is detailed here. It's trivial.

It's supposed to be able to return you to the exact state in terms of running applications. Are you sure that you've done this (from the Nautilus help manual):

• 1.Open the GNOME Main Menu (footprint) and choose Programs->Settings->SessionStartup Programs. (The menu option may be Session Properties and Startup Programs.)
• 2. The GNOME Control Center opens in the Session Properties and Startup Programs section. If you see a Startup Programs tab, click it.
• Make sure the checkbox labeled "Automatically save changes to session" is enabled. (If your GNOME Control Center window has tabs, this checkbox is under the Session Options tab.)

And also upon MainMenu->Logout->SaveCurrentSetup is checked? I suspect that you need to take the actions above.

One other problem I encountered had to do with printing. Null was the first Redhat I've tried that detected my printer (epson c80) during the install, however it did not get setup properly and automatically, the reboot sequence displayed Fail for lpd, no printer configured.

Have you tried using CUPS? It's worked perfectly for me when I switched from using the LPrng printing system. I also made sure that I had gimp-print and foomatic packages installed and it works very nicely. Try using the /usr/bin/redhat-switch-printer command to switch over to cups. (The RH redhat-switch-X commands work with a re-implementation of Debian's "alternatives" system).

First check Linux printing if your plotter is listed. If it is, use Cups...

CUPS is to be found here. Sorry about that!

Open Source software is free for some, but for all of the programmers and all of the companies behind the scenes it's very costly.

Yes, but the cost is really widely distributed, so that compensation for any individual is complicated. Let me give you an example.

I run Linux. I also have an HP printer, so I use the hpoj software. I also like the CUPS print spool software. HPOJ and CUPS don't integrate very well. So I wrote, and distribute under GPL, a CUPS backend that allows it to integrate with HPOJ. I contributed about 2-3 hours of time to get this to work. But in return I got hundreds and hundreds of other people's work. I got a working printer and a very flexible print spooler running on a free operating system! And for that I made it so that other people can do that too. I contributed 2-3 hours of work that has value, because it saves time for whoever else uses it (2-3 hours multiplied by the number of users). Thus it contributes back to the economy of opensource/free software, making it all more valuable. I pay small amount of time, and I get back huge amounts of time. Moreover, my contribution makes it so that the next guy will get even more back for his/her contributions. Everyone that contributes a small amount of time, gets paid back much more than they contributed.

What makes opensource/free software different is that it allows large numbers of people to contribute their work to each other, and cumulatively save themselves tons of work. I gladly trade 2-3 hours of work for 2-3 hundred hours of work. It saves me time and money.

I like Joel's article, but it doesn't explain the tradeoff of how people get paid in opensource. It doesn't explain the small amount of effort input for huge amounts of gain returned that opensource/free software allows and encourages. And that's got to be part of the economic equation that explains opensource. It only tries to explain the economics of why IBM, HP, et al, are contributing to opensource. It ignores the fact that IBM, HP, et al, are also trading their small contributions of time for the huge amount of time and money that they save.

The interesting thing for me is that it shows a good trend, i.e that OS X is converging with other Unixes not only at low level (Jaguar should sync with a more recent version of BSD) but also at the component/framework level: beside this Javascript component, CUPS is scheduled to be included in Jaguar.

An interesting question would be, what other open source components/framework would be good additions to Mac OS X? I suppose one obvious answer is a native version of GTK

CUPS. It rocks. I got debian unstable printing to my Epson 780 in full photo quality color very quickly. Administration is simple. It truely is a beauty in the world of printing. I would be surprised if SuSE doesn't already have packages for it too.

SDB: Printing with CUPS looks good... I also had to upgrade the gimp-print plugin to have it work with CUPS. Good luck.

CUPS, brutha, CUPS.

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) has support for simple quotaing. You can limit number of pages per user per time interval (e.g. month) and so forth. You cannot however set quotas per user individually or per user group. THere is, however a page_log which logs who has print how many pages. This can be used to disable access to the printing server for those who print to much to your likings :)

I'm running RH 7.1, which has LPR with Printtool by default, but after many wasted hours trying to get it to print reasonably well with any of my three printers, I finally found a solution that works.

The solution? CUPS with XPP. This basically gets me all the functionality I need, with compatibility in most apps. All of my KDE apps use CUPS's LPR emulation to print. StarOffice, Mozilla, and other X apps use XPP, in which the program sends the postscript data to XPP and XPP lets me select a printer, printing options, and sends it to cupsd. If any console apps want to print, they just use CUPS's LPR emulation. Samba also integrates with CUPS, letting me share my printers.

Setting up my printers was also a piece of cake. Downloaded & extracted the CUPS printer definitions from the website. Went to my nice CUPS admin page (http://localhost:631/) and went through the setup under "Add Printer." No config files to mess with or anything...

The only thing I could wish for is for RedHat to use CUPS as the default printing system, as other distros like Mandrake have done. It was really a pain to rip out printtool and all the crap it leaves behind.

Michael F. Robbins

I'll tell you why -- good old fashioned ego. Whereas the low end (kernel developers, compiler writers, etc.) and high end (clustering software, 3D modelling and rendering, etc.) of development is led by strong, well-organised teams of well-trained developers with vision and understanding, the middle ground of the Linux is polluted with warring egos that suffer too much from the problematic NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. There are a myriad of competing, mutually incompatible yet separately inadequate office suites (Star Office, KOffice, Applix,...), desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, CDE, UDE, ROX,...), and X servers (XFree86, MetroX, XiG). We can't even decide on a printing system! I realize that, according to Eric S. Raymond's famous "Cathedral and Bazaar" text, that open-source software is primarily written to scratch an itch and get peer recognition, but this is taking it too far. If all the man-hours poured into KDE and GNOME were combined into a common vision, we would have one perfect end-user desktop, instead of two poor imitations of Windows.

Don't give me the old "competition" argument either. There is only one Linux kernel, which seems to progress just fine without another competing project nipping at its feet and instigating flamewars. The endless KDE vs. GNOME, Applix vs. StarOffice, and other feuds have wasted more productivity than would be gained by and competitive drive.

I, for one, am somewhat miffed that while my operating system powers Hollywood blockbusters and NASA supercomputers, it still can't fully replace Windows on my office desktop. Linux is growing up; its users need to grow up with it, shed their egos and work towards the common goal of creating an excellent working environment.

CUPS works very well.

printing on a non-postscript printer still sucks in linux. It's more trouble than needed, and the results arent as nice as with NT.

Try using cups. It does a *very* good job of bringing printing in *nix to the same level of nice features that you see in winders and macos. I don't think it's all the way there, yet, but it's a dramatic improvement. Couple it with a large array of drivers from gimp-print and you've got a much more sane printing environment under *nix.

What about printing? Did he test with all the printer types in his office? If he is 100% Postscript that he has some chance, but if there are any low-end Epson color printers, his users could be in for a big surprise.

You chose utterly the wrong argument here. I have an Epson Stylus Photo 1290 and previously had an Epson Stylus Color 850, and the GIMP-Print drivers for these have totally blown me away - the output I get from them is simply stunning, and considerably better than the official Windows drivers. They also support every feature and resolution of my Stylus Photo, even doing colour matching using Postscript.

Also, they don't crash, unlike the Win2k drivers...

Better yet, I'm using these drivers with CUPS as the print spooler and the KDE2.2 print framework. Using this combination, it is just as easy to add, manage and remove printers as it is under Windows. In fact, for networked printers, it is even easier, as I can also configure CUPS through a web browser from anywhere. The print dialog in KDE apps is fully comprehensive, easily customizable by each app and supports things that Windows doesn't - for instance, post-processing of print data through arbitrary commands, which means every print driver has the capability to print multiple pages per sheet, and every app can print straight to a PDF file. Truly, it is a joy to use. I haven't seen a comparable print framework anywhere else.

For more information, check out the GIMP-Print, CUPS and KDE Print framework websites.

Printing under Linux has finally come of age - and it is better than Windows!

Actually I was pleasantly surprised when I moved to an office a few weeks ago that uses CUPS. It really does "just work". Absolutely awesome.

Of course, I'm using a network printer. I'm not sure what the state-of-art is for personal printing so you might have a point.