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Making Linux Printing as Easy as in Windows
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."
I use KPrint (part of KDE infrastructure) with CUPS... I dont think I could ask for much more, though admittedly I think you still have to set the thing up via the CUPS web interface.
Still, it's better than using lpr/lpq and wondering what bit of the pipeline ate your document =)
Have you ever tried to set up a shared printer on a windows box attached to a LocalTalk network (Mac)? This is NOT easy :-(
Granted that is not the most popular case, but you've got to admit that MS didn't make that option too obvious. Those bastards. My HP 2000NT is still printing 2 pages of PS crap at the end of each printing session ONLY from the windows box (with latest drivers and 4 days watch in hand with MS/HP tech support.)
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-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
What's wrong with this picture?
Printer set-up and configuration is as simple as on Windows or MacOS
TurboPrint for Linux comes as a tarball containing 'install' and 'uninstall' shell scripts, installation instructions, and all the binary software.
Yes, it's a command-line installer!
The default printing would be in black and white, and when I want to print in colour, I can just change the print command used by the program from 'lpr' to something like 'lpt -Ptp0'.
Yes, you have to give command line options to set printing modes every time you print with a different mode!
And yet this gets an 18 out of 20 in the review. It's amazing to me that this late in the game, there are still so many Linux-heads who just don't get it. This is not just inferior to Mac and Windows -- it's a giant quantum leap backward from where Mac has been for seventeen years and Windows for six. Real end users don't memorize command languages.
Tim
The next problem after printing is ironed out is the lack of a single, easy to use tool to add, temporarily disable, manage and remove fonts in any Linux setup, that makes one set of fonts (both ttf and Type 1) in a single directory available to all applications system wide, in the way that Adobe Type Manager does.
We then need CMYK capability in The Gimp. After these are in place, it will be possible to assemble a desktop publishing suite that will have mass appeal, because anyone will be able to design and publish to QuarkXpress/Photoshop/Illustrator quality, and print the results, all in a rock solid, free alternative to Windoze and OSX, without any pain.
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It doesn't really get much better if the "linux-heads" try to put a GUI front-end on things. Widget layouts are often poorly thought out and often covey contradictory or ambiguous choices for configuration. These sad attempts at usability are even praised more highly than the supposedly "easy" command line stuff. The real problem is that the linux hackers designing interfaces in the linux community get sugar-coated reviews of their stuff by other linux hackers who are far too eager to say something is usable out of their ignorance of user interface design and out of their belief that anything under GPL is inherently superior to anything proprietary, interface or otherwise. As a personal experience, I once talked to a person who created a linux installer for a very prominent linux distribution and I mentioned a few of the dozens of confusing or ambiguous or inconsistent things I found in its interface. He couldn't understand what the problem was: he thought I thought that it "wasn't pretty enough". And yet die-hard linux zealots who remember vi commands before they remember their wife's anniversary claim that this interface is perfectly easy and that this installer is perfectly ready for the desktop.
The few people with interface design knowledge who point out these problems are usually called "whiners", and are told to shut up and code their own improvements.
Putting it bluntly, the linux development community is doing more to kill linux on the desktop than Bill Gates ever could. Microsoft realizes this, and that's they have never considered linux on the desktop a threat.