Printing for the Impatient using ApsFilter

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."

Comments

That's sad....

[Creepy Crawler]

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?

Re:That's sad....

[edhall]

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

Re:That's sad....

[TheRaven64]

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?

Re:That's sad....

[Nickus]

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.

Re:That's sad....

[i18rabbit]

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.

apsfilter: Old but good

[BrokenHalo]

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.

CUPS gives you choice

[Sits]

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.