Slashdot Mirror
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 guess the real question is how well it can handle some of the cheap Windows-only printers that are given away for $99 that don't have Linux drivers available anywhere. If it really can support a lot of these, then $99+$19 is still cheap for a printer.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
.. is some kind of wine-driven printer emulation layer, that would let you use windows printer driver sin Linux. Why? Because I have a printer that I have had for 4 years now, and is still nowhere near a Linux solution. Is this idea even possible? I think it would be great if it were, since I could finally use my printer!
This is one of the core problems with Linux. Someone comes out charging money so we can do something as menial as print documents, and we actually have to take it seriously.
It's part of the basic problem with the degree of modularization (a supposed "Good Thing") that we have, I guess. Still, it'd be nice if we could have all this sort of basic admin stuff thrown into a central location with other peripherals, instead of one for the OS, one for the GUI, etc.
IMO, this is something Windows did right. I've been working with Linux for a long time so this isn't a surprise to me, but I can just imagine the look I'd get from newbies I'm trying to win over to our side when I try to give reasons for why Linux doesn't have a true equivalent for the Control Panel.
-------------------------------------------------
charlton heston is more of a man than yo
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?
... and then we find out that most of their software WILL NOT RUN under XP (yes even by using compatibility mode) and that they will have had to have gotten a new scanner and printer because they wont work either.
I set up a windows xp box for someone the other day. It was QUITE an upgrade from their old 133 mhz computer -- they were excited that all their programs will run SUPER FAST and that their printers/scanners/etc will be OH SO nice...
Now I'm sure that windows xp has changed QUITE a few things but come on... they have used winxp for a bit now to see if they can put up with it.. they now want me to install windows 98 on there... quite an upgrade (if you ask me)...
Now before you say "Put them on Linux!" -- get real.. would you put your mother-in-law on linux --> knowing you dont want to put up with her "Whats this? BASH? Is this a joke??"... feh on them all..
hehe, good one. An operating system as big as Windows XP that is vulerable out of the box with the default setup is unacceptable to me. Many people that have already purchased this operating system will not patch this hole. We'll be seeing Code Red II pretty soon.
Is RH 7 vulnerable OOTB with the default installation, no. Some services such as wuftpd are vulnerable to a remote exploit, but the user must turn those on manually. It is then assumed that the user knows what he or she is doing and then secures the service by updating the RPMs. In the XP case, the user just has to take the computer home from Best Buy and plug the thing into the cable modem and it's vulnerable.
Well, Linux is the type of operating system where you are EXPECTED to go under the hood (as the mechanics would say..*grin*). It's part of the challenge. Initially I had problems with printing on my Slackware 7.1 box. So I installed a script called apsfilter (which came along with the distribution and is available at freshmeat.net or tucows). This little beauty did everything needed to be done for my printer setup, including editing the /etc/printcap file. In my four years of running Linux, I have yet to find anything that there wasn't software regularly available on the net, and print tools such as apsfilter is just one example
My two bits
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
I've recently rediscovered cups. For my printing needs, mixed unix and some windows it beats everything else hands down. It provides easy web based administration or if you're fimilar with the bsd or sysv (big bonus for me since i primarly use solaris) style command line tools it has those as well. But the number one thing that makes me choose cups overy anything else is its support for using PPD drivers. Need a driver for that freaky printer, Xerox DocuCenter 332ST in our case? Download the PPD stick it in /usr/share/cups/model and off you go. Now i can use all the features of the printer. Not just simply print to it. Eg. now i can colate, staple, duplex print etc. Couple this with kups or xpp which are "print setup" like programs that let you adjust your print settings and its almost as easy as on a mac. So aside from support for "winprinters" how is turbo print different from cups?
This is, in my opinion, one of the areas that will continue to limit the ability of Linux to be used on the desktop. The printing process is simple and flexible for a hacker, if it is a supported printer, but fails the mom test miserably.
What is really needed is an organization with some clout to get behind an API that can be integrated into applications, with a standard, integrated menu selected printer control. Just like the Macs have had for 17 years and Windoze has had for 10? years. There have been a couple of attempts in this direction, which seem to have mostly fizzled. That is why heavyweight clout will be required to make such a thing work.
CUPS is an improvement and a little easier to use for the printer driver installation and setup. But this does not address the user interface. This is something that perhaps Redhat, on the Gnome side, and perhaps some other organization on the KDE side, should have handled years ago. I think this is far more important than having a Gnome/KDE office suite.
The fundamentals should be the first priority, and in an office, printing is absolutely fundamental and critical. A big enough busines can perhaps afford to hire a Linux guru to set up printing, but that should not be required and will remain a roadblock. In fairness, Windoze printer installation and setup is often no picnic either, but that is no excuse for Linux being so lame in this area.
"My side" wrt Linux is a place where things really ARE modular and logical. Where, if you have an extraordinary knowledge of systems and computer science as a whole, you can enjoy your time in it. Where, if something isn't working, you can change and recompile it within hours.
Your "our side" seems to be that awful "I want Linux to be a better Windows than Windows!" garbage. Here's some advice: Linux is not Windows, and Linux will never be Windows. It will never be worse than Windows; it will never be better than Windows -- IT WILL NEVER BE COMPARABLE TO WINDOWS. If you want something like Windows, use Windows. If you want something kind of like Windows but different, use Windows. If you want something better than Windows -- sorry to say it -- you're going to have to live with Windows. LINUX IS NOT WINDOWS.
And why on Earth would you be trying to "win over" someone to "your side"?! Can you even THINK of anything more dishonest? Linux is not Britney Spears; it is not a Happy Meal. If people use it, it's because they want a free Unix-like operating systems, they've done their research, and they WANT to use it. It's not because they've been tricked into something (sorry -- "won over"), so that when they finally do try out Linux, they're horribly disappointed at how un-Windows-like it is, and hold some kind of great resentment towards it.
Look around the web. How many "Linux sucks" posts and websites do you find? A LOT. Is it because Linux actually sucks? Not likely. It's because some "helpful" friend tried to "win them over". They probably said something like "if you're tired of Windows crashing all the time, try this other operating system called Linux". They try Linux, expecting it to be better than Windows, and SURPRISE SURPRISE find out that it "sucks". If you use Linux expecting it to be Windows, guess it, it sucks donkey balls. Not just any donkey balls either -- big ones. LINUX IS NOT WINDOWS. DON'T PRETEND IT IS. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY AND COMPUTER USERS EVERYWHERE, DO NOT "WIN OVER" SOMEONE EVER AGAIN.
Loaded up printerdrake in my Mandrake 8.1 installation.
2 minutes later, I run upstairs to find see the printer goin to work on a perfect test page!
Mandrake rules, kids. No need to spend 20 dollars on anything else.
Berto
Either I read the article correctly or it is misleading. It says that different command line parameters are necessary for different printing modes, and that the parameters are set by the user. In order to set up his different printers, he had to change the printing command line options in each of the different printer instances. It's true that this only needs to be done once per mode and the user can then select different "virtual" printers for the right option set without re-typing the stored command line, but it does need to be done once per mode -- or else the article is false in saying that "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'". That states that the user changes the command line; it does not state at any point that using GUI options changes the command line for the user.
Tim
All thats lacking for linux printing is the knowledge of whats avaliable, check out linuxprinting.org As a summary if you use Redhat use printtool, suse have there own setup in yast, Mandrake probably have something too, for debian or most other distributions use aps though as with most setups you need ghostscript(for postscript conversion) and a printer spooler such as lpd or lprng. Never used it but CUPS is supposed to be easy to use and of course you could just buy a postscript printer. I don't see why this commercial program is needed, use whats out there and free as in beer and speech!
My perception is that most people have problems not with printing, but with their printer. People buy printers that only work with oddball command languages or expect the host CPU to do absolutely everything and send them raster lines. Whem I am asked about these marginal printers at LUG meetings and installfests, I advise people to get postscript or pcl/hpgl printers. These are standard printer languages. I have never seen a printing situation that postcript couldn't handle.
But people still buy these cheapo printers and when they find out that Linux mostly supports elegant, standard printer interfaces they jump directly into "Linux sucks" rants.
One way to convince these people to buy "real" printers is to point out that a printer with some specialized driver might not be supported in the future. Suppose the manufacturer made a driver for printer yzx-ii for Windows 3.11. They discontinued the printer in 1994 but they still released a driver for Win95. They updated their driver for Win98, but they never did bother porting it to WinNT. Now they don't support Windows 2000 or XP, and you can't expect them to keep writing drivers for printers they last sold eight years ago.
Now look at the alternative case. Instead of yzx-ii you layed out a little more cash for a postscript printer. This printer is going to work with any past, present, or future operating system until the hardware falls to pieces. The buyer of a postscript (or pcl) printer never has to worry about printer drivers. He's got a postscript printer! It's just like HTML, TeX, and so on: the standard is out there, you can't kill it, and it will be supported for eternity.
My printer is an Apple LaserWriter II NTR, which I found in the trash. It has a postscript processor, so I can use it with Linux and like operatings systems, Windows [3,95,NT,XP], OS/2, and vintage of MacOS, and so forth. This printer was introduced in 1992 and it still works great, without software problems of any kind. I'll never need a new "driver" for it because I already have the postscript printer description file and I don't believe the hardware is changing! If I had paid money for this printer, I would consider it a wonderful purchase.
(end of rant)
We then need CMYK capability in The Gimp.
Easier said than done. Color science is still serious voodoo, and entire companies have foundered on the rock of device-specific color correction. There are now a few fairly good color management systems out there, but they're not free. Creating a good free one would involve the uncompensated labor of some talented color scientists for a few years, and guess what -- the open source ideal doesn't really exist in color science, and good color scientists with a grasp of computability are very hard to find. They'll also require several supporting programmers.
Then, once you've got the basic system, you have to create profiles for all the color printers in the market; or, you can boost the difficulty level by an order of magnitude and try to create a general-purpose adaptive color calibration system so that users can calibrate their own printers -- which requires a color-calibrated scanner, and so merely shifts the per-device calibration cost, as well as requiring the user to have a scanner.
It's really hard for me to see how those things could happen in an open source environment. You're probably talking an investment of at least five million dollars.
Tim
(former employee of EFI and Light Source)
Interesting links, but they still leave open the device profiling cost, and their web pages smack of amateurism. Have there been any comparisons between their print quality and the quality of commercial color management systems? The field is littered with color management systems that never produced consistently good prints, and lacking any comparative data I'm skeptical that these two amateur projects have beat the trend.
A Google search did not turn up comparative or review information on either project, except for this negative user review of Argyll. I did turn up this page of free color management links, but no feedback from publishers or designers on how well any of them work.
Tim
Open Source advocates assume that Open software will always be better, in every sense, than Closed, because so many people are examining the source code. It's true that objective source code scrutiny does make better source code. But there's more to good software than absence of code errors. You need testing. Regression testing, usability testing, stress testing... MS can pay for all this because of their huge revenue stream. Development models that attempt to compete with Microsoft's closed model forget this at their peril.
This product doesn't even support the HP 7xx series of printers. It appears to only support printers that were already supported anyways. There is nothing amiss, other than new linux users insisting that everything be like windows. This would be solved if people would learn how to setup their linux systems and run them like linux systems rather than complaining that it's not windows.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.