I have to agree with FunGoYom. It is my opinion that one of the major short
falls of Linux is lack of printer, scanner and camera support. It is no use
just saying 'buy a printer that does run with Linux'. I have all three of the
above devices and not one of them works with Linux. And as for the idea of
booting into window$ just to print, surely that simply defeats the object.
Moreover, you can e-mail the manufacturers until you're blue in the face, as I
have, and you either hear nothing back or get a polite 'get lost' reply.
Linux is probably going to have to bite the bullet and support non postscript
printers (please don't tell me about ghostscript !) directly, parallel port
scanners and a better range of digital cameras if it to really succeed with
'joe public' (please don't tell me that Linux is not for 'joe public', I really
don't believe that).
I am a software engineer, and I have done protocol decoding in the past, but I
simply don't know where to begin with driver development, and even less so
under Linux. But if someone would like to point me in a suitable direction I
would be only to pleased to join any development effort in this area.
Apart from Netscape plugins this is the one area preventing me from switching
entirely to Linux.
Please reply sensibly :)
Owen
