On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, OS wrote:
> 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.
Well it's way better than emailing us untill your blue in the face they
can actualy do something about it, where as for us it's a very
excrutiating process of mailing printers to people willing to fry thier
brains to write drivers for them. If you really really need to print with
a specific print you might want to check out cups but it's not going to
come with out a price.
> 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).
We've had the hp ppa driver for quite some time now. For cameras there is
gphoto, and i don't track sane development so can't say anything about
it's status :/
> 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.
Probably a good spot is the linux programmers guide (/usr/doc/LDP/lpg, or
www.linuxdoc.org), and of course the dead-tree method is always around
> Apart from Netscape plugins this is the one area preventing me from switching
> entirely to Linux.
>
> Please reply sensibly :)
I tried :)
> Owen
>
--
MandrakeSoft http://www.mandrakesoft.com/
--Axalon
