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Printing for the Impatient using ApsFilter

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the putting-words-on-paper dept.

BSD Forums writes "While Unix has roots in document formatting and layout, configuring printers has always required more black-arts arcana. This hasn't been helped by the appearance of low-cost commodity WinPrinters. Fortunately, tools like Ghostscript, gimp-print, and Apsfilter make configuring printers much easier. Michael Lucas demonstrates quick and dirty -- and working -- printer configuration."

50 comments

  1. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

    FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

  2. Inside Edition: Candid developer tells all ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    The End of FreeBSD

    [ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

    When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.

    Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.

    FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.

    It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.

    So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.

    Discussion

    I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.

    From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.

    There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.

    Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.

    Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?

    Shouts

    To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.

    To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's whe

  3. What I know about BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    1. You can not play games on it.
    2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
    3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
    4. There is no support available for it.
    5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
    6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
    7. You have to compile everything and know C.
    8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
    9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
    10.It is dying.

  4. BSD Feeding Tube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oct. 23 -- BSD resumed receiving life-sustaining care yesterday in a
    Florida hospital room, but many experts said there is virtually no hope
    that it will ever recover, despite it fan boy's desperate hopes.

    "IF IT'S over a year, BSD's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a
    professor emeritus at Weill Cornell College in New York. "You'd just
    don't see it. It just doesn't happen."
    BSD, 39, has been in a persistent vegetative
    state since its heart stopped for unknown reasons in 1990. A feeding
    tube in BSD's stomach was removed this past Wednesday after its husband,
    Theo De Ratt, who said his wife had told him she (BSD) would not want to
    be kept alive under such circumstances, won a long series of court
    battles to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn so she (BSD) could
    die.

  5. R.I.P. -- BSD makes the "B" team by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    We must report with a heavy heart that Bob "I'm still dead" Hope has gone on to join the "B" team. As you all may know, BSD has been part of the "B" team for quite some time.

    The Year of Our Lord 2003 has been a particularly bad year for the "B"s,

    • Bob Hope
    • Buddy Ebsen
    • Buddy Hackett
    • Barry White
    • BSD
    This honored list of dead is but a small token of adieu from the many fans of the deceased.
    These dead were truly some American Icons. They will be missed.
  6. shit shit shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    the only comments are the "dying" ones. get a life you wankers

    1. Re:shit shit shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      we are alive BSD and have lives, BSD on the other hand is dying and soon to be dead.

    2. Re:shit shit shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      all the more reason why BSD dead. not too many BSD fans I imagine.

  7. FreeBSD's fatal flaws by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    FreeBSD suffers from a couple of serious process flaws -- it is an operating system which is truly at home neither in the open-source nor the proprietary markets primarily because, although the source is open, the development team is not. Furthermore the license allows proprietary software to "steal" source code and use it. The combination of these problems leads to a somewhat inferior OS.

    Now, Apache uses a BSD style license but they have an open development model which allows them to take advantage of a very large developer pool in order to stay ahead of their competition. In fact although proprietary versions of Apache exist which perform better than the official releases, SGI has put out some open source patches which generate even larger performance boosts. This is the reason why they have such a strong showing in terms of market share.

    BSD once had potential but the procedural problems they are experiencing hurt it when it comes to the market. I suspect that this is probably in part because the BSD teams are not interested in such things, and that is a shame... In fact, although I labeled it as an inferior OS, this is not due to lack of progress within BSD -- it has been progressing somewhat, but rather because all the improvements they make tend to be quickly copied by their competitors AND they lack the developer pool to stay ahead of this game (a problem which does not exist in the Linux or Apache communities, though for somewhat different reasons).

    I don't think that there is enough widespread support for BSD to save the operating system. What must be done is an opening up of the development process OR a GPL-style restriction on redistribution. In many ways I favor the former.

    Even in a worst case scenario, I don't see BSD completely dying. I think the developers are less into competition and more into a sort of idealized cooperation. As a result, even if BSD becomes more marginalized, I don't think that it will die outright. It will most likely outlive Netware, for example.

  8. That's sad.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in the old SysV days, you HAD to go through a convoluted filter set and queue system to do about anything. If yoy're still doing it this way, you're insane.

    The best way to print anything now is using CUPS. Easy to set up and administer. Who WOULDNT want to use it?

    --
    1. Re:That's sad.... by edhall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you feel that way, install the CUPS port and be happy. When it works for a given situation (about 85% of the time) CUPS is simple and fast to set up. But when things go wrong, you'll see just how complicated CUPS really is. It's nice to have a simpler (implementation-wise) method available to deal with such situations.

      Your post is so typical of what I see on Slashdot these days. Why use BSD when you have Linux? Why use some other processor when you have Intel? Why use another browser when you have Mozilla? It's the high-school herd mentality. It's "geek chic." It's a lazy way to avoid learning in depth and developing your own base of experiences and opinions.

      It's depressing.

      -Ed
    2. Re:That's sad.... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What, exactly, does CUPS give me? To configure my printer under FreeBSD I needed to add two lines to /etc/printcap. How is installing another piece of software easier and better than that?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:That's sad.... by Mekanix · · Score: 1

      Tell me how to print from StarOffice using CUPS and I'll have another go...

    4. Re:That's sad.... by Nickus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      CUPS is nice for a small setup with not that many printers. Add a lot of printers, a lot of different ppd files and you really have a nightmare. We were so happy when Apple decided to go with CUPS as their printing system but ever since then we have had nothing but problems. If someone knows how to solve duplex printing on large OCE printers please let me know.

    5. Re:That's sad.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried installing CUPS on my freebsd box. It had far too many dependencies on other packages. I couldn't get it installed and it's not important enough for me (I only print TeX files or ascii text with enscript, so I don't need a print spooler).

    6. Re:That's sad.... by i18rabbit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why is this a 5 (or even interesting):

      That's sad.... (Score:5, Interesting)
      The best way to print anything now is using
      CUPS. Easy to set up and administer. Who
      WOULDNT want to use it?

      When this is a 4?

      Re:That's sad.... (Score:4, Insightful)
      Your post is so typical of what I see on
      Slashdot these days ...

      The first comment was totally stupid with no
      substance or relevance, and should be a -1 or
      less. The second comment was very
      substantive and intelligent and deserves
      a book of deep thought and commentary.

      It exposes a small symptom in the technology
      arena that appears to be on the rise
      throughout society; the result of turning
      spankings into "time-outs", republics
      into "democracies", and individualism into
      "collectivism". A symptom of teachers that
      are ignorant of their subjects, kids that
      use calculators to do basic math, and
      graduates that get diplomas for purposes
      of self-esteem. A symptom of the feminization
      of men, the masculation of women, the reverence
      of followers and distain for individual success.

      Most every post (given that this is a hacker
      type forum) is a display of ignorance with
      a promotional cover, and/or a whiny complaint.
      UNIX printing is as simple as could be. No one
      needs CUPS or 'apsfilter' or any of it. Just
      how hard is it to pipe as necessary into 'gs',
      directing output into a printer device?

      With 'jpeg2ps', 'gs', and a few lines of awk
      anyone can print JPEG's, PS/EPS/PDF, DOS(CRLF),
      UNIX(LF) files, and more. And if you have a good
      PS printer, you don't even need the 'gs'.
      Any decent software package that needs
      to print can print PS.

      A few lines of awk can do everything
      all these programs can do (and more): /usr/bin/lp /usr/bin/lpq /usr/bin/lpr /usr/bin/lprm /usr/sbin/lpc /usr/sbin/lpd /etc/printcap /usr/libexec/lpr/lpf

      You can even have your script page number
      text files, etc. When I set up a system
      for printing, I need to change one 'gs'
      variable in an awk script, and that's it.
      What makes that so hard? UNIX printing
      has been utterly simplistic for years.

    7. Re:That's sad.... by thanjee · · Score: 1

      I don't have the opportunity to use cups. My FreeBSD box sits in a Macintosh computer lab at a music research centre. The printer is a remote ethernet printer. It is postscript though, so it was easy to set up using LPR, and I just send documents straight to its ip address. Considering how easy it was to set up, I don't see the need for CUPS anyway, even if it could have been done that way :p

      --
      Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
    8. Re:That's sad.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Junior, BSD is dead. This implies FreeBSD is dead. What part of dead don't you understand?
      1. Grieve.
      2. Get over it.
      3. Move on.

      You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.

    9. Re:That's sad.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 1

      >>>The first comment was totally stupid with no
      substance or relevance, and should be a -1 or
      less. The second comment was very
      substantive and intelligent and deserves
      a book of deep thought and commentary.

      The second comment had just as much substance as I did.

      >>>It exposes a small symptom in the technology
      arena that appears to be on the rise
      throughout society; the result of turning
      spankings into "time-outs", republics
      into "democracies", and individualism into
      "collectivism".

      Let me guess.. A liberal arts major? You sure pull a lot out of your arse for "no substance" text.

      >>>bla ba bla useless diatribe trimmed

      >>>Most every post (given that this is a hacker
      type forum)

      This sure as hell isnt a hacker-type forum. This place is a "Windows Hater" forum. All people do is monger about how Linux will rescue us from the evils of properitary software, while many of us fawn over the same damned lockin of Apple's OSX. If any category hit this place, it's full of hipocrites.

      >>>is a display of ignorance with
      a promotional cover, and/or a whiny complaint.
      UNIX printing is as simple as could be. No one
      needs CUPS or 'apsfilter' or any of it. Just
      how hard is it to pipe as necessary into 'gs',
      directing output into a printer device?

      Unix printing is simple with decent printers that support PS. Just try getting these winprinters to print using this same subsystem. You'll spend at least 5 days figuring out the correct filterset to run it through, if you can do it at all.

      >>>With 'jpeg2ps', 'gs', and a few lines of awk
      anyone can print JPEG's, PS/EPS/PDF, DOS(CRLF),
      UNIX(LF) files, and more. And if you have a good
      PS printer, you don't even need the 'gs'.
      Any decent software package that needs
      to print can print PS.

      >>>You can even have your script page number
      text files, etc. When I set up a system
      for printing, I need to change one 'gs'
      variable in an awk script, and that's it.
      What makes that so hard? UNIX printing
      has been utterly simplistic for years.

      Cheap printers means the computer has to take control of more. But since you're a master haxx0r, I'll spare telling you why.

      It's people like you that don't want easy configurations for the end-user to use. It's what's wholding back Linux from popular usage.

      --
    10. Re:That's sad.... by i18rabbit · · Score: 1

      >Let me guess.. A liberal arts major?

      you guess wrong.

      >This sure as hell isnt a hacker-type forum. This place is
      a "Windows Hater" forum. All people do is monger about how
      Linux will rescue us from the evils of properitary software,
      while many of us fawn over the same damned lockin of Apple's
      OSX. If any category hit this place, it's full of hipocrites.

      http://bsd.slashdot.org

      1. This is supposed to be a BSD forum.
      not a "Windows Hater" forum, nor a Linux forum. BSD's
      have never held the acquirement of the MS Windows user
      base as a goal. The goal is/was simply to create the best
      system; organized, segmented, trim, well thought out, and
      speedy.

      2. Linux people may monger about
      rescues, BSD people tend to work on solving problems which
      is why BSD forums tend to be sparse - we got better things
      to do then "monger" and "fawn". BSD people (more so in
      the past) were, in general, people involved in the "full
      use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities,
      etc..", a process of self-actualization. Their goals
      weren't based upon petty grievances with MS or socialist
      agendas; but simple goals of engineering quality.

      3. I don't even know why Linux posters
      are allowed here. I'd rather see http://bsd.slashdot.org
      empty (a good sign that BSD developers are hard at work).
      Linux posts should be considered way off topic. When I
      come to a BSD forum, I'd like to see the classic hacker
      intelligence BSD developers are known for, or nothing at
      all. If I wanted to read the rants and ravings of Linux
      kiddies, I'd go to http://www.peewee.com, not
      http://bsd.slashdot.org.

      The only reason I bothered to post is because I am getting
      tired of checking out Slashdots BSD section, only to find Linux
      kiddies on a consistent and overwhelming basis, particularly
      the "BSD is dead" garbage. It's a turn off to anyone with any
      maturity at all, and is a deterrent to intelligent discussion.

      >Unix printing is simple with decent printers that support
      PS. Just try getting these winprinters to print using this
      same subsystem. You'll spend at least 5 days figuring out
      the correct filterset to run it through, if you can do it
      at all.

      I wouldn't buy a "WinPrinter". And anyone that does is only
      casting their consumer vote for such devices. That's why BSD's
      don't support "WinModems" and "WinPrinters". They are intelligent
      enough to understand that you don't vote for things you don't
      like - or you will get more of it.

      In general, the "smart thing" to do is to research OS hardware
      support BEFORE buying a device, not AFTER.

      Linux people want WinThis and WinThat because they want to
      compete with MicroSoft. BSD people don't. They aren't
      interested in being "a better monopoly". BSD people just want
      a good OS. That's historically been their agenda.

      >>UNIX printing has been utterly simplistic for years.

      >Cheap printers means the computer has to take control of
      more. But since you're a master haxx0r, I'll spare telling
      you why.

      Thank you. But do tell me how you can have knowledge of bad
      engineering, and yet willingly participate in it's promotion
      - only to then complain.

      It's somewhat akin to the saying: "if you were conservative
      in your 20's, you didn't have enough fun; and if you were a
      liberal in your 30's, you didn't have enough brain cells".

      Linux is for 20 year old hackers. BSD is for hackers 30+.

      >It's people like you that don't want easy configurations for
      the end-user to use. It's what's wholding back Linux from
      popular usage.

      Yes, "Insightful", 5 points. BSD people don't care about
      "popular usage". We care about integrity and quality. That's
      all. We are happy MS provides an OS for the McDonalds and
      CompUSA t

  9. Sadness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Although it is true that BSD is dying, there are some helpful steps you can take ease your sorrow:
    • deal with the inevitable.
    • grieve for your loss.
    • move on. Never let your emotions get mixed up with something as silly as a computer operating system. It isn't healthy. So BSD fails. Big whoop. Deal with it and move on. Hope this helps.
  10. Troll-in-one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    All the *BSD is dying posts are contained in this one post to spare the BSD section of the heavy trolling. If you have mod points and you're a wanking Linux fanboy, please mod this up so that everybody will know your dark and dirty private secret -- that *BSD is dying, and that you masturbate like a monkey on drugs! There's no need to post your own trolls, as they will only be redundant and you'll make yourself look even more like an asshole!

    Oh, and if I've missed any, please add your *original* non-dupe troll as a reply and I'll include it in the next Troll-in-one.

    _*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

    The *BSD Wailing Song

    What's left for me to see
    In my ship I sailed so far
    What can the answer be
    Don't know what the questions are.
    And after all I've done
    Still I cannot feel the sun
    Tell me save me
    In the end our lost souls must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low.
    Who knows what's really true
    They say the end is so near
    Why are we all so cruel
    We just fill ourselves with fear.
    And heaven and hell will turn
    All that we love shall burn
    Hear me trust me
    In the end our lost sould must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low
    Final curtain
    Final curtain

    _*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

    • flask of ripe urine
      pressed to bsd lips
      bsd drink up

    _*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you BSD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a BSD box (a PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various BSD machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a BSD box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the BSD machines faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that BSD is a "superior" machine.

    BSD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a BSD over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

    _*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

    It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Almost everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of th

  11. DEAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    _d8b____________________d8b_______d8,
    _?88____________________88P______`8P
    __88b__________________d88
    __888888b__.d888b,_d888888________88b_.d888b,
    __88P_`?8b_?8b,___d8P'_?88________88P_?8b,
    _d88,__d88___`?8b_88b__,88b______d88____`?8b
    d88'`?88P'`?888P'_`?88P'`88b____d88'_`?888P'

    ______d8b________________________d8b
    ______88P________________________88P
    _____d88________________________d88
    _d888888___d8888b_d888b8b___d888888
    d8P'_?88__d8b_,dPd8P'_?88__d8P'_?88
    88b__,88b_88b____88b__,88b_88b__,88b
    `?88P'`88b`?888P'`?88P'`88b`?88P'`88b

  12. BSD Reaper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    All our times have come
    Here but now they're gone
    Mac OS don't fear the reaper
    Nor do the windows, SUN or the rain..we can be like they are
    Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
    Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
    We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
    BSD's bought the farm....

    Distro is done
    Here but now they're gone
    Romeo and Juliet
    Are together in eternity...Romeo and Juliet
    40,000 server crashes every day...Like Romeo and Juliet
    40,000 workstations reformatted everyday...Redefine happiness
    Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
    Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
    Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
    We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
    BSD's bought the farm...

    Love of two is one
    Here but now they're gone
    Came the last night of sadness
    And it was clear she couldn't log on
    Then the file was opened the wind appeared
    The mobo blew then disappeared
    The curtains flew then Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith appeared...saying don't be afraid
    Come on baby...and she had no fear
    And she ran to them...then they started to fly
    They looked backward and said goodbye...she had become like they are
    She had taken their hand...she had become like they are
    Come on baby...don't fear the reaper "

  13. More BSD Problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you BSD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a BSD box (a PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various BSD machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a BSD box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the BSD machines faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that BSD is a "superior" machine.

    BSD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a BSD over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

  14. apsfilter: Old but good by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Apsfilter has been the default UI on Slackware for years. Takes 5 minutes to setup printers (even over networks).

    CUPS is fine if it works out of the box. If it doesn't do that, you can be stuck without a working printer for a long time while you ramble through woefully inadequate documentation.

    1. Re:apsfilter: Old but good by kirkjobsluder · · Score: 1

      I had major problems setting up apsfilter with an HP5550 (selected because of claimed compatibility). I could get good but not great output through aps filter. I find that both of them have really bad documentation (although half of the problem was with a bug in the hpijs port.) In both cases printing was a bit harder than it needed to be.

    2. Re:apsfilter: Old but good by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Looks like your printer is a bit more upmarket than mine. My hp deskjet works perfectly with apsfilter. Did you build your ijs drivers from source?

    3. Re:apsfilter: Old but good by kirkjobsluder · · Score: 1

      Yes, but apsfilter could not see the new driver settings for the printer and the documentation was no help in figuring out where to copy the configuation files.

  15. ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Use Ghostscript - it's the one best suited for BSD. Also remember that funerals are expensive.

  16. OT: Thinknig about trying BSD by Michael's+a+Jerk! · · Score: -1

    I am seriously thinking about trying BSD. Can the BSD user please direct me to a list of pros/cons? Can I run linux programs?

    --

    I'm not Seth.

    1. Re:OT: Thinknig about trying BSD by fault0 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      pros:

      stable, fast networking. solid overall. ports rock.

      cons:

      less hardware support than linux, generally (having more SATA success with linux than freebsd myself)

      yesm, you can run linux binary programs. i do run a quake3 server myself, for example =)

    2. Re:OT: Thinknig about trying BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      cons:
      generally slower, less scalable in terms of algorithms and how parellel the kernel is than Linux.

      It is considered more stable than Linux by its proponents, but no studies have indicated one way or the other.

  17. There are a wide variety of tools. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    When I was just starting out, getting the printer configured was actually the hardest part of working with the operating system. All these filters, and trying to figure out how to pipe the stuff properly to the device or use something like lpq.

    It's definitely time for an all-in-one one stop solution to the problem. Some sort of program that configures these filters automatically on your dead or dying operating system, and now it looks like there's a bit of hope. Creating and working with Word documents was perhaps the other pitfall, but now that OpenOffice can do that and support PDF writing I might have to take a second look at this neo of a system.

    How does installation go?

    1. Re:There are a wide variety of tools. by JShadow · · Score: 0

      The installation of any of the BSDs is very simple and straight-forward. I've heard of very few that have had much trouble installing Free, Open, or Net...However Some say that Net is a little convoluted, although I haven't tried that one.

  18. BSD Tombstone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "Do not stand at my hard disk and forever weep.
    I am not there; I do not sleep.
    I am a thousand winds that blow.
    I am the diamond glints on snow.
    I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
    I am the gentle autumn's rain.
    When you reboot in the morning's hush
    I am the swift uplifting rush
    Of quiet birds in circled flight.
    I am the soft stars that shine at night.
    Do not stand at my hard disk and forever cry.
    I am not there. "

  19. The End of BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The End of FreeBSD
    [ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

    When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.

    Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.

    FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.

    It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.

    So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.

    Discussion

    I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.

    From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.

    There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.

    Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.

    Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?

    Shouts

    To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.

    To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers

  20. pros: none cons: everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying

    Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dead

  21. I've got plenty of proxies, CowboiKneel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    suck it down, lardass

    The Failure of *BSD

    Of course we can all agree that BSD is a failure, but why did BSD fail Once you get past the fact that BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know BSD keeps losing market share but why Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players Or is it larger than their troubled personalities
    The record is clear on one thing no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for BSD.

  22. I can tell you who! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who WOULDNT want to use it?

    Brett Glass.

  23. interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    We were so happy when Apple decided to go with CUPS as their printing system

    I was a 'happy user' of LPRng 'till I heard Apple was making CUPS thier print engine of choice.

    Then I moved to CUPS, hopin for a 'eaiser' printing future. The comment about having Add a lot of printers, a lot of different ppd files and you really have a nightmare prompts me to ask - what is 'another' option?

    Straight BSD lpr is a non-option. AIX had a 'nice' print spooler, if you didn't SMIT and reboots. (and, well, it was AIX) So other than LPRng, what is other useful choices?

  24. SHIT ON ME! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    SHIT ON ME! It's official - Netcraft has fucking confirmed: *BSD is dying

    Yet another cunting bombshell hit the "community" of *BSD asswipes when IDC recently confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of one single puny fucking percent of all servers. Coming hot on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more fucking market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is ingesting itself backwards, disappearing up its very own shitter, as fittingly exemplified by coming a piss poor dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a cock-sucking Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any fucking future at all for *BSD because that sorded, shit-filled, mutated testicle of an operating system is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink splashes across the accounting documents like a series of exploding bloodfarts. FreeBSD munches the most ass of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD cuntwipes Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying and its rotting corpse smells worse than a maggot, vomit, shit and piss cocktail.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the fucking numbers, shall we? OK!

    OpenBSD wanker Theo states that there are a pathetic 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Oh, God, let's fucking see... The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore it's turd-suckingly obvious that there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore, by simple fucking arithmetic, there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. Surprise fucking surprise, this is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of those arseholes at Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD showed themselves to be a bunch of retarded tossers, went out of business and were taken over by BSDI who sell another special needs OS. Now BSDI is also a miserable failure, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house... pathetic.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily fucking declined in market share. *BSD is where it belongs, at death's door and its long term survival prospects are almost non-fucking-existant. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among moronic, dilettante shitheads. *BSD continues to Chew Satan's Dick And Fuck The Baby Jesus Up The Pooper. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD IS A FUCKING USELESS WASTE OF BITS AND IS DYING LIKE THE DOG THAT IT IS. IT MAKES ME SICK JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

  25. BSD Sux0rs CowGoat Kneel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    In a startling turn of events today, a previously little-known fact came into the public eye: "*BSD Sux0rs". This came as a complete surprise to the BUWLA, or BSD Users With Large Assholes, as they previously thought that *BSD 0wned.
    "You see, even though I have never contributed code to any BSD project, I thought it was my duty to be a big asshole to others which don't use the OS I do, because it just 0wnz.", said one FreeBSD user. "Now that I know it sux0rs, though, I have to go find something else to be an asshole about."

    One notorious OpenBSD fanatic known as WideOpen, told reporters, "I have to kill myself. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. My BSD has always been the best, and shouting that opinion in other people's faces at every chance I got has been my only hobby. It was all I ever did. It was what got me out of bed in the morning. Now I have to die. I will jam my bedpost up my ass until I hit my brain. It is the only way to go: BSD style."

    In the volatile world of operating systems anything can happen. "At least we don't sux0r as much as Windows users", BigAzz, a relatively well-known NetBSD user said. "Screaming things in people's faces is my calling. Now I need to scream that BSD sux0rs. What a sad world. At least I won't kill myself like those uber-asshole OpenBSD guys. They are just way over the top. Or were, at least."

    Nobody knows for sure what the future holds for the state of operating systems, but with Netcraft confirming the sux0r status, *BSD users all over the world will have to stick something else up their asses from now on or risk looking even more gay than they used to.

  26. CUPS gives you choice by Sits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  27. What I know about GayBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    1. You can not play games on it.
    2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
    3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
    4. There is no support available for it.
    5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
    6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
    7. You have to compile everything and know C.
    8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
    9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
    10.It is dying.
    .

    1. Re:What I know about GayBSD by bsDaemon · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      you're a liar or a lunatic. i'm going to find you, shoot you in both of your kneecaps, and leave you for dead in a whole in a bog in west Co. Derry.

  28. WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you BSD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a BSD box (an Athlon64 w/4 Gigs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 180 running NT 3.51, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various BSD machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a BSD box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the BSD machines faster chip architecture. My 386/25 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this Athlon64 machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that BSD is a "superior" machine.

    BSD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a BSD over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

  29. cups by luphus · · Score: 1

    Maybe I didn't poke through the documentation enough, but I never figured out how to make cups accept remote jobs. I figured it'd be a snap to get a cups based OS X box to print to a cups printserver... Anyway, after much messing around I finally settled on magicfilter and lprng, although I'm sure apsfilter would work. Magicfilter had an script using the gdi driver that I was able to tweek to make my goofy samsung laser (ML1710) happy.

  30. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Subject says it all.

  31. Hard Times for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Sure, we all know that *BSD is a failure, but why? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personas?

    The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.