Oi,
as you know from another posting, I am integrating CUPS into Mandrake
Linux. There I see a little problem now. There are various printer
driver bases: CUPS-O-MATIC by Grant Taylor, CUPS-drivers by Jean-Eric
Cuendet and Michael Goffioul, PPD files by PostScript printer
manufacturers and by Adobe, and some drivers coming with CUPS.
Now I want to set up a unified drivers database for the Mandrake
distribution CDs which supports as many printer models as possible,
which makes use of the information of all databases mentioned above. Now
one could think, I can download/mirror all of these databases and put
them onto the Mandrake CDs. But then It would get difficult for the user
to install a printer. Which base contains HIS driver? So in the worst
case he will search up to four sources.
My idea is the following:
The nicest free software for printer administration, KUPS searches for
printer drivers in /usr/share/cups/model/, so it finds all drivers
supplied with CUPS and all drivers of the CUPS-drivers package. There is
no possibility to get drivers from CUPS-O-MATIC or Adobe directly out of
KUPS. My idea is now the following: I create a robot to put on a server
at MandrakeSoft and to start once a weak by cron, which automatically
surfs to the following pages:
CUPS-O-MATIC -> Generate all possible PPD-files and put them into
subdirectories of /usr/share/cups/model/
CUPS-driver -> Download the most recent version and uncompress it
Adobe -> Download all driver packages and uncompress them into
subdirectories of /usr/share/cups/model/
CUPS -> Download the newest package and extract the drivers out of it
Download additional executables, if necessary, too.
Then we have the most complete as possible set of drivers in the
/usr/share/cups/model/ directory of the server. This base will be copied
to the Mandrake CDs and the new printerdrake (the printer configuration
program, based in KUPS) will search for drivers for the detected printer
in the local /usr/share/cups/model/ and then on the appropriate Mandrake
CD. Perhaps it also establishes an internet connection to the server at
Mandrake and naturally it allows to insert a CD or floppy of the printer
manufacturer.
The robot itself I will distribute under the GPL and give a possibility
to it to download only drivers for a particular printer model and/or
manufacturer. So the installer can even call the robot by itself if
anything else fails.Power users can have always the newest driver by a
cron job (or every time when they dial up to the internet).
What do you think about that?
Problems:
Non-GS-based drivers: The only form of non-GS-based drivers I know are
programs where GS pipes a raw bitmap to the driver which is a seperate
program. Are there other types of non-GS-based drivers? Which and how do
they work? Are they also supported by CUPS-O-MATIC?
Printers supported only with patched GS: I have heard that some printers
need a patch to GS to be supported. Are there many patches to GS for
different printers? Should one hav many GS executables for that reason
(gs-lexmark, gs-hp, gs-canon, ...)?
Micro$oft-compressed PPDs: Is there any free software program to
uncompress Micro$oft-compressed PPD files? For example I had to install
a HP Laserjet 4050 with PostScript interpreter and on its CD I only
found a file 'hp4050_6.pp_' which is the M$-compressed version of
'hp4050_6.ppd'. The only possibility to uncompress it, was taking it
with a floppy to an old DOS/Win3.1x box and uncompressing it there using
'expand hp4050_6.pp_ hp4050_6.ppd'. I think for most users doing this is
impossible. Has anyone a solution?
I am grateful for any help,
Till
