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Making Linux Printing as Easy as in Windows

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-still-prefer-my-printcap dept.

Jonny5 writes: "In preparation for the transition from windows to a Linux based workstation, the main focus is that of peripheral compatibility. Sure Linux is rock solid stable, and has an almost totally customizable GUI, but dammit, if my hardware won't work, what's the point? ...After hearing about TurboPrint, and their claim to provide 'Printer set-up and configuration is as simple as on Windows or MacOS,' I had to rise to the challenge. LinuxLookup.com has done a full review of TurboPrint For Linux."

3 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. The Windows GDI by rcw-home · · Score: 5, Informative
    Windows print drivers work by accepting Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface) commands and using them to plot a page.

    UNIX apps don't send GDI commands - they usually send postscript commands.

    So unless someone wants to write a postscript to GDI filter, that approach won't work.

    Oh, and things that need to communicate directly with your hardware (like this printer driver) may not be able to run in wine anyway.

  2. Why not Lexmark? by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 5, Informative



    In my experience, Lexmark has wonderful Linux support for its products. $79 at Best Buy got me a very high quality 1200dpi inkjet printer (the Lexmark Z23) with both Windows and Linux support. The Linux side actually works better than its Windows counterpart, oddly enough. It runs as a daemon process, does PostScript exactly the way it should, and the fact that its a USB printer doesn't complicate the situation either. It all just plain works, out of the box. Even has a nice graphical config utility

    Kudos to Lexmark for doing it right!

    --
    Bowie J. Poag

  3. To all you CUPS advocates out there... by SCHecklerX · · Score: 5, Informative
    ...Just make sure you set
    PreserveJobHistory No
    PreserveJobFiles No
    in your /etc/cupsd.conf, or your cupsd process will get HUGE over time!! Mine grew to over 17 Meg on my own box. Sheesh!

    Also, make sure there are no spaces after the 'No's. The first time I tried configuring this, I had a space after the word and the braindead parser couldn't recognize the option because of it(not sure if they've fixed it in the newer versions or not)...so I swore for a couple hours before actually checking my syslog as to why the damned thing kept ignoring the option :)

    The GUI should let you purge completed jobs, IMNSHO. For a basically single-user system, it's best to just disable those two options, unless you are into checking your /var/spool/cups directory on a regular basis (I have better things to do with my time)