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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."

3 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. 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. 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.