HP2663 colour inkjet, to the left of my laptop, great quality, speed and economy under Windows (pity about the 150MB+ Windows driver package), but under Linux the job goes off to the printer and never emerges; and
Congratulations, you have found an old, and likely invalid, Ubuntu bug report and misspelled the name of printer in it:
Equipment doesn't last that long. They used Linux for years, I will be surprised that any single printer (other than HP LaserJet 4 or 5 -- those things last ridiculously long) was not replaced over that whole time.
ZPL supports loadable fonts. They just aren't in any way related to Unicode (and that is the same regardless of the OS used) -- you have access to 256 characters at a time, so if you have multilingual text, you may have to use multiple fonts and 8-bit charset. German is supported with ISO8859-1 or ISO8859-15, cyrillic+ASCII with KOI-8, etc. If you need a label with cyrillic and German, or cyrillic and Japanese you may have to switch fonts.
This is how those printers work (and how most matrix printers worked in 70's-90's), it has nothing to do with operating systems.
What "facts"? Most vulnerabilities (privilege escalation) on Linux desktop mean that local user sitting in front of a console can become root without entering his password. They would matter on multiuser systems, but the whole point of a desktop is that it is a personal computer. You need a combination of privilege escalation and remote execution to cause any damage.
I'd estimate maybe 25% of the printers I've seen in corp environments support Postscript, about 50% support some variant of PCL (which mostly overlaps the Postscript ones) and the rest are a mix of custom drivers and just plain bizzare cruft.
Hello, people of 1994! Dotcom bubble will burst in March 2000. Don't tell me I have not warned you.
Except, of course, he is right, and you are talking out of your ass.
Networked printers with features that he mentioned, are not only automatically supported but also automatically detected by CUPS (that is, printer support that is always installed on desktop Linux and OSX). They indeed "just work".
Multifunction devices. Often only some of the functionality is supported.
Only on very cheap ones. Except HP -- they support everything, including plenty of things they better should've not.
Wireless cards. Much less of an issue than it was two years ago but many manufacturers have an annoying habit of changing chipset but keeping the model number the same.
In German Foreign Office? If they need those, the problem is certainly not with Linux.
And scanner support in Linux is not as sane (pun!) as you would hope. This is not a "Linux flaw", its a scanner vendor flaw, as even the good "hp printer drivers" don't include any kind of decent "hp scanner facility" under Linux.
This is a complete and undiluted bullshit. HP maintains hplip for years, supports all their modern hardware, and considering how awful is their Windows software, switching from Windows to Linux results in a massive improvement in their devices' usability.
And my outstanding Cannon
It's Canon, not Cannon.
mf9170c at home has no Linux drivers at all so it took non-trivial effort to discover that cups 1.4+ and the generic PCL6 support drivers was the magic combination that _still_ borks up if I put it in the (unnecessary, but you know a diplomat is going to use it) "high quality mode". So the people to blame for bad "Linux printer and scanner driver support" is the manufacturers of the printers and scanners.
Canon MF9170C is a ~$1800 USB printer/scanner (kind of expensive for home use) fully supported by CUPS. Canon supplies CUPS-compatible UFRII driver for Linux, and you can use PPD files they distribute for use on other operating systems. Congratulations for finding a model that is not mentioned by name on Canon site, yet supported along with the rest of their devices.
I have never, ever been able to install Ubuntu on any laptop without having to spend days, sometimes weeks to solve basic functionality problems such as wireless, TV out...
Formally you are right, because you never installed Ubuntu on any laptop at all.
Oh for fuck sake, you have posted vague complaints about supposed usability problems, and you pretend to use Slackware, the only Linux distribution without a package manager?
If anyone did not notice, for many years CUPS remains being the only print server/spooler/driver supported on OSX. If printer does not work with CUPS, it will never work on a Mac.
While it's possible for a printer vendor to create a OSX-only last-step backend, no one so far was stupid enough to do so.
Well, calling them shitheads is an awesome way to motivate them, isn't it?
It's not to motivate them, it's to discredit them, so they will not be able to convince other people. It's easier to call shithead a shithead early than to deal with hundreds of people parroting his shit later.
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HP2663 colour inkjet, to the left of my laptop, great quality, speed and economy under Windows (pity about the 150MB+ Windows driver package), but under Linux the job goes off to the printer and never emerges; and
Congratulations, you have found an old, and likely invalid, Ubuntu bug report and misspelled the name of printer in it:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/599956
Epson CX4300 3-in-1, to the right of my laptop.
Another success for googling:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1659498
You don't even have those printers. You just google for "ubuntu printer problem".
Equipment doesn't last that long. They used Linux for years, I will be surprised that any single printer (other than HP LaserJet 4 or 5 -- those things last ridiculously long) was not replaced over that whole time.
Thunderbird is far superior to Evolution when configured to use IMAP.
And there is no legitimate reason for using any other mail reading protocol but IMAP.
It means, you are a retard, and configured wrong PPD.
That HP and openprinting helpfully supply for all those printers.
No.
http://www.google.com/search?q=zebra+zpl+programming+guide
ZPL supports loadable fonts. They just aren't in any way related to Unicode (and that is the same regardless of the OS used) -- you have access to 256 characters at a time, so if you have multilingual text, you may have to use multiple fonts and 8-bit charset. German is supported with ISO8859-1 or ISO8859-15, cyrillic+ASCII with KOI-8, etc. If you need a label with cyrillic and German, or cyrillic and Japanese you may have to switch fonts.
This is how those printers work (and how most matrix printers worked in 70's-90's), it has nothing to do with operating systems.
Grasp[ing at every straw, aren't we?
Zebra printers don't work with regular printing applications -- to use them, a custom application has to send command in one of supported formats.
Oh, lookie, a full documentation! http://www.google.com/search?q=zebra+zpl+programming+guide And it includes, among other things, loading fonts!
What "facts"? Most vulnerabilities (privilege escalation) on Linux desktop mean that local user sitting in front of a console can become root without entering his password. They would matter on multiuser systems, but the whole point of a desktop is that it is a personal computer. You need a combination of privilege escalation and remote execution to cause any damage.
Windows, on the other hand...
HP provides a tool with bells and whistles, however everything else has drivers/networking support that works just fine.
I'm pretty sure that Mac users don't have to point a browser to http://localhost:631/ [localhost] to add a printer,
Actually they do. This is the easiest way to configure printers, and the interface is exactly the same as on Linux.
or use the Gnome/KDE GUIs.
OSX printer configuration utility looks like a twin of KDE one.
I'd estimate maybe 25% of the printers I've seen in corp environments support Postscript, about 50% support some variant of PCL (which mostly overlaps the Postscript ones) and the rest are a mix of custom drivers and just plain bizzare cruft.
Hello, people of 1994! Dotcom bubble will burst in March 2000. Don't tell me I have not warned you.
Except, HP supports all its printers on Linux now. Their utility (hplip) is much more user-friendly than their Windows monstrosity, too.
Except, of course, he is right, and you are talking out of your ass.
Networked printers with features that he mentioned, are not only automatically supported but also automatically detected by CUPS (that is, printer support that is always installed on desktop Linux and OSX). They indeed "just work".
Multifunction devices. Often only some of the functionality is supported.
Only on very cheap ones. Except HP -- they support everything, including plenty of things they better should've not.
Wireless cards. Much less of an issue than it was two years ago but many manufacturers have an annoying habit of changing chipset but keeping the model number the same.
In German Foreign Office? If they need those, the problem is certainly not with Linux.
What is this with hordes of "confirmators" for obvious bullshit?
Microsoft marketing people sure are busy.
Except, of course, all linux distributions use the same kernel and therefore have the same drivers.
You have no idea what you are talking about, and you have only seen Linux in your anti-Linux marketing materials.
And scanner support in Linux is not as sane (pun!) as you would hope. This is not a "Linux flaw", its a scanner vendor flaw, as even the good "hp printer drivers" don't include any kind of decent "hp scanner facility" under Linux.
This is a complete and undiluted bullshit. HP maintains hplip for years, supports all their modern hardware, and considering how awful is their Windows software, switching from Windows to Linux results in a massive improvement in their devices' usability.
And my outstanding Cannon
It's Canon, not Cannon.
mf9170c at home has no Linux drivers at all so it took non-trivial effort to discover that cups 1.4+ and the generic PCL6 support drivers was the magic combination that _still_ borks up if I put it in the (unnecessary, but you know a diplomat is going to use it) "high quality mode". So the people to blame for bad "Linux printer and scanner driver support" is the manufacturers of the printers and scanners.
Canon MF9170C is a ~$1800 USB printer/scanner (kind of expensive for home use) fully supported by CUPS. Canon supplies CUPS-compatible UFRII driver for Linux, and you can use PPD files they distribute for use on other operating systems. Congratulations for finding a model that is not mentioned by name on Canon site, yet supported along with the rest of their devices.
He's right, you know?
No, he is not.
I have never, ever been able to install Ubuntu on any laptop without having to spend days, sometimes weeks to solve basic functionality problems such as wireless, TV out...
Formally you are right, because you never installed Ubuntu on any laptop at all.
Also lol at TV out on a laptop.
At home I run Win7 and tinker with a render-farm running Linux.
No, you don't. Anything that counts as a "render farm" produces the amount of noise that can not be possibly tolerated in any kind of house.
3. Who spends all day fiddling with Linux systems to get things working OK?
Microsoft marketing consultant does. He spends the next day googling for "ubuntu problem".
Oh for fuck sake, you have posted vague complaints about supposed usability problems, and you pretend to use Slackware, the only Linux distribution without a package manager?
Average Joe does not seem to have a problem spending hours entering line noise into Windows Registry to make media players work on Windows.
If anyone did not notice, for many years CUPS remains being the only print server/spooler/driver supported on OSX. If printer does not work with CUPS, it will never work on a Mac.
While it's possible for a printer vendor to create a OSX-only last-step backend, no one so far was stupid enough to do so.
Another poster who posts absolutely nothing but Microsoft marketing.
Well, calling them shitheads is an awesome way to motivate them, isn't it?
It's not to motivate them, it's to discredit them, so they will not be able to convince other people. It's easier to call shithead a shithead early than to deal with hundreds of people parroting his shit later.
At least now they jump into the country AFTER the leaders are gone.