subject:"Re\: Printers using free software only"

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-03 Thread Camaleón

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:02:19 +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:

 On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 02:06:07PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:43:13 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:

(...)

  The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you are
  using CUPS, *THEN* you are automatically using a PDF filter
  paradigm because it **is considered superior/more robust**.
 
 That's what CUPS developers seem to claim (?) but having used PS
 printers and PS backend as default for all these years, I'm a bit
 reluctant about grandiloquent wordings with no more technical proofs on
 the superiority of one on the proposed systems over the other.
 
 If you want technical proof, please download the specs for both from
 Adobe's website and compare them.  Both are freely downloadable.
   http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf
   http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf
 The wikipedia pages for both are also reasonably informative.

Specifications are not a proof that describe something is better or worse 
per se, pros and cons have to be analyzed separately and also based on 
real use-cases other than over a white paper.

 The fact is, PDF *is* the continuation of PostScript.  

Yes, I know all that. What I wonder is whether my printer needs all of 
the PDF additions (my eBook reader for sure, but my printer...).

 It's just an evolved form of PostScript in a binary format.  

Evolution is not always for good ;-)

 More accurately, both formats are implementations of the Adobe imaging
 model; until PDF 1.4, both of these formats implemented the same set
 of primitives. PDF 1.4 and later implement new additions to the imaging
 model, while PostScript will not see any new releases.  If you look at
 all the drawing primitives contained within PostScript, they are all
 right there in PDF. If you take any PostScript document, you can
 execute it and transform all the drawing commands to their PDF
 equivalent. That's why it's trivial to to the conversion.  The converse
 is not always true: because PDF is a *superset* of the PostScript
 drawing model, and so you potentially lose information going the other
 way, because you might have to convert a single PDF primitive into
 multiple PostScript primitives which only /approximate/ the PDF.

And how it translates all of the above into a PDF filter is better than 
PS? I mean, I need facts, numbers, comparison tests, user-case 
examples... not nice wording :-)
 
 You can read a nice overview of the history and relationship between the
 two here:
   http://www.prepressure.com/postscript/basics/history
 
 I hope from the above you'll understand that is indisputable that 1) PDF
 has a more technically sophisticated imaging model 

Can't tell. I'm sure PDF will add some nice features but also drawbacks 
when it comes to printing.

 2) PDF is the de-facto standard for professional document printing 

It's the most compatible/easier to send file format, but the best... 
well, that will depend on the professional you ask ;-)

Also, careful with the election of the words. MS Word's .doc is also a 
de-facto standard document format for office automation and we know 
that's just an empty statement, right?

 3) PostScript is no longer being developed, and PDF is its successor
 Moving to a PDF based printing workflow is an improvement due to being
 technically superior and the logical way to go.

Good to know. When I have to decide the buy for a new printer I will 
ensure it does also support PDF directly but until that moment comes, I 
will still use what my printers do understand.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jvgsje$e45$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-03 Thread Martin Steigerwald

Am Donnerstag, 2. August 2012 schrieb green:
 Martin Steigerwald wrote at 2012-08-02 13:19 -0500:
  I am quite confident my HP OfficeJet 5610 doesn´t contain such a
  nasty firmware, as I am using it for a real long time now.
 
 True according to
 http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/officejet/officejet_5600_s
 eries.html (search for driver plug-in and see note 8.
 
 Some HP printers are supported by HPLIP *with* a proprietary plug-in. 
 This seems to be clearly stated on the printers' support pages as at
 the above link.

Thanks for finding this.

The knowledge base article linked from note 8 is a quite informative read:

http://hplipopensource.com/node/309

-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201208040009.16294.mar...@lichtvoll.de

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Roger Leigh

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 02:06:07PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:43:13 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
 
  On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +, Camaleón wrote:
  I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter as the
  default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as good nor as
  simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies have always
  showed different needs than users and these jumps are seen
  differently when you have to hold them as user or as admin.
  
  The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you are
  using CUPS, *THEN* you are automatically using a PDF filter paradigm
  because it **is considered superior/more robust**.
 
 That's what CUPS developers seem to claim (?) but having used PS printers 
 and PS backend as default for all these years, I'm a bit reluctant about 
 grandiloquent wordings with no more technical proofs on the superiority 
 of one on the proposed systems over the other.

If you want technical proof, please download the specs for both from
Adobe's website and compare them.  Both are freely downloadable.
  http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf
  http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf
The wikipedia pages for both are also reasonably informative.

The fact is, PDF *is* the continuation of PostScript.  It's just an
evolved form of PostScript in a binary format.  More accurately, both
formats are implementations of the Adobe imaging model; until PDF
1.4, both of these formats implemented the same set of primitives.
PDF 1.4 and later implement new additions to the imaging model, while
PostScript will not see any new releases.  If you look at all the
drawing primitives contained within PostScript, they are all right
there in PDF.  If you take any PostScript document, you can execute
it and transform all the drawing commands to their PDF equivalent.
That's why it's trivial to to the conversion.  The converse is not
always true: because PDF is a *superset* of the PostScript drawing
model, and so you potentially lose information going the other way,
because you might have to convert a single PDF primitive into multiple
PostScript primitives which only /approximate/ the PDF.

You can read a nice overview of the history and relationship between
the two here:
  http://www.prepressure.com/postscript/basics/history

I hope from the above you'll understand that is indisputable that
1) PDF has a more technically sophisticated imaging model
2) PDF is the de-facto standard for professional document printing
3) PostScript is no longer being developed, and PDF is its successor
Moving to a PDF based printing workflow is an improvement due to
being technically superior and the logical way to go.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
  .''`.  Roger Leigh
 : :' :  Debian GNU/Linuxhttp://people.debian.org/~rleigh/
 `. `'   schroot and sbuild  http://alioth.debian.org/projects/buildd-tools
   `-GPG Public Key  F33D 281D 470A B443 6756 147C 07B3 C8BC 4083 E800


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120802170219.gr25...@codelibre.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Martin Steigerwald

Am Montag, 23. Juli 2012 schrieb green:
 Stan Hoeppner wrote at 2012-07-23 06:59 -0500:
  On 7/23/2012 6:17 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:
   I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection.
  
  LEXMARK E260dn, monochrome laser:
 I purchased a Lexmark E360dn, hoping for good Linux support.  It prints
 nicely, but does not give a good experience with regard to paper type
 and tray selection.  The only problem, as far as I can tell, is that
 there is no correct PPD file: even the PPD provided by Lexmark is
 broken.  I tried writing one (PPDC), but did not have the time to
 learn the syntax, etc (remotely deployed printer).  With that fixed, I
 *think* it would work perfectly.
 
 I do wish there were more hardware manufacturers with a real interest
 in making their products work well with Linux.  HP is the best I have
 seen: http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/recommended.html

I agree.

I have an HP OfficeJet 5610 multi function device and just everything 
worked out of the box. Printing, scanning and I think even faxing. As well 
as ink status display.

Whats more, I can let this inkjet sit here for months and then print as if 
nothing happens. The dealer told me its capable to pull the ink back so 
that it doesn´t dry inside the printer head.

I can also refill a ink cartridge about five times. Only think is teaching 
the printer to accept it as full again. You need to cover some pins for 
that. But since printing works I usually just accept that ink status 
display is bogus.

I looked what files are in hplip, hplip-data, hplip-gui and printer-
driver-hpcups and found no binary blob in there. So if there is none 
within the printer driver file itself, I bet its all open source here.

merkaba:~ LANG=C apt-cache search hplip binary
merkaba:~ LANG=C apt-cache search hplip firmware
printer-driver-hpijs - HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS driver 
(hpijs)
merkaba:~ LANG=C apt-cache show printer-driver-hpijs
Package: printer-driver-hpijs
Source: hplip
Version: 3.12.6-3
Installed-Size: 1821
Maintainer: Debian HPIJS and HPLIP maintainers […]
Architecture: amd64
Replaces: hpijs ( 3.11.10-1ubuntu2)
Depends: libc6 (= 2.4), libdbus-1-3 (= 1.0.2), libgcc1 (= 1:4.1.1), 
libhpmud0 (= 3.12.6-3), libjpeg8 (= 8c), libssl1.0.0 (= 1.0.0), 
libstdc++6 (= 4.1.1)
Recommends: ghostscript, cups (= 1.4.0) | cupsddk | hpijs-ppds, foomatic-
filters
Suggests: hplip, hpijs-ppds, hplip-doc
Breaks: hpijs ( 3.11.10-1ubuntu2)
Description-en: HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS driver (hpijs)
 This package contains an IJS printer driver for Ghostscript, which
 adds support for most inkjet printers and some LaserJet printers
 manufactured by HP.  It is also required for HPLIP fax support.
 .
 The Debian package of hpijs includes the so-called rss patch, to use
 pure black ink instead of composite black in printers that don't do
 color map conversion in firmware.
 .
 HPIJS can take advantage of Ghostscript IJS KRGB support when
 available, to enhance black printing on printers that do color
 map conversion in firmware and are thus not affected by the old
 rss patch.
 .
 Users of the CUPS printing system are advised to also install the
 hplip package, and use the hp CUPS backend to send data to the printer.
 HPLIP supports USB, networked and parallel-port devices, and enables
 extended HPIJS functionality such as border-less printing.
 Selecting any hpijs ppd in CUPS will use hpijs automatically.
 .
 HPIJS is meant to be used through the foomatic system (see the
 foomatic-filters package).
Homepage: http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html


Hmmm, still no firmware.

Also the hpijs-ppds package doesn´t contain some.

So I would have a closer look as for which models a firmware is needed. 
After all I can see here, mine works without – except the firmware which 
resides in the printer itself.

Thanks,
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201208022015.08833.mar...@lichtvoll.de

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Martin Steigerwald

Am Montag, 23. Juli 2012 schrieb Brian:
 On Mon 23 Jul 2012 at 08:29:49 -0300, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
  On 07/23/2012 07:47 AM, Registros Web wrote:
  Hi all,
  
  Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
  100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
  using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
  printer.
  
  If you buy a printer that supports Postscript then you should be set
  without requiring any driver, as Linux applications generally output
  Postscript when printing.
 
 All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
 output in PDF format when printing.

Haven´t there been plans to switch CUPS to use PDF internally as well?

-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201208022017.28016.mar...@lichtvoll.de

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Martin Steigerwald

Am Donnerstag, 26. Juli 2012 schrieb Gaël DONVAL:
 Three goods points were raised:
 1) Postscript printers (advertised so) are great in that regard because
 they only need a PPD (ASCII) file to work. This is not the only way to
 be sure the printer will work in 10 years but this is the easiest (BTW,
 I have never heard of someone complaining because some binary blobs for
 his printer were not available anymore...).
 2) Even with open source drivers, you cannot control the firmware of
 the printer: some printers are programmed to force you to visit your
 reseller once in a while for maintenance or just stop working.

What? Well I better look that up in this thread.

I am quite confident my HP OfficeJet 5610 doesn´t contain such a nasty 
firmware, as I am using it for a real long time now.

-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201208022019.16708.mar...@lichtvoll.de

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Martin Steigerwald

Am Donnerstag, 2. August 2012 schrieb Roger Leigh:
 On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 02:06:07PM +, Camaleón wrote:
  On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:43:13 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
  
 
   On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +, Camaleón wrote:
   I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter
   as the default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as
   good nor as simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies
   have always showed different needs than users and these jumps
   are seen differently when you have to hold them as user or as
   admin.
  
   
  
   The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you
   are using CUPS, THEN you are automatically using a PDF filter
   paradigm because it **is considered superior/more robust**.
 
  
 
  That's what CUPS developers seem to claim (?) but having used PS
  printers  and PS backend as default for all these years, I'm a bit
  reluctant about grandiloquent wordings with no more technical proofs
  on the superiority of one on the proposed systems over the other.
 
 If you want technical proof, please download the specs for both from
 Adobe's website and compare them.  Both are freely downloadable.
   http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf
   http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf
 The wikipedia pages for both are also reasonably informative.
 
 The fact is, PDF is the continuation of PostScript.  It's just an
 evolved form of PostScript in a binary format.  More accurately, both
 formats are implementations of the Adobe imaging model; until PDF
 1.4, both of these formats implemented the same set of primitives.
 PDF 1.4 and later implement new additions to the imaging model, while
 PostScript will not see any new releases.  If you look at all the
 drawing primitives contained within PostScript, they are all right
 there in PDF.  If you take any PostScript document, you can execute
 it and transform all the drawing commands to their PDF equivalent.
 That's why it's trivial to to the conversion.  The converse is not
 always true: because PDF is a superset of the PostScript drawing
 model, and so you potentially lose information going the other way,
 because you might have to convert a single PDF primitive into multiple
 PostScript primitives which only approximate the PDF.

Roger, many thanks for taking the time to explain the switch from 
PostScript to PDF in such a great detail. I found your posts to be a 
really informative read.

Thanks,
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201208022040.26249.mar...@lichtvoll.de

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Brian

On Thu 02 Aug 2012 at 20:17:27 +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote:

 Am Montag, 23. Juli 2012 schrieb Brian:
  
  All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
  output in PDF format when printing.
 
 Haven´t there been plans to switch CUPS to use PDF internally as well?

May I repeat the URL given previously:

   
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

Having applications produce output in PDF was all part of the plan to
have the complete printing workflow with CUPS use PDF. All the
essentials are now in place. It has been a truly remarkable effort.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120802185450.GC6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Dom


On 02/08/12 19:54, Brian wrote:

On Thu 02 Aug 2012 at 20:17:27 +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote:


Am Montag, 23. Juli 2012 schrieb Brian:


All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
output in PDF format when printing.


Haven´t there been plans to switch CUPS to use PDF internally as well?


May I repeat the URL given previously:


http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

Having applications produce output in PDF was all part of the plan to
have the complete printing workflow with CUPS use PDF. All the
essentials are now in place. It has been a truly remarkable effort.


It seems to be a good plan. I can see the advantages in it.

A pity it doesn't quite seem to work for me. I use a Brother HL5250DN 
printer, which used to work fine.


For a while now I've been unable to print from Iceweasel to that printer 
(it works on my Epson Stylus Color 470, although I can't get the margins 
set right). I believe this is due to Brother's BRScript Postscript 
emulation. I know some fixes are in place for that, but it still doesn't 
work - just prints an error page.


Recently gedit has failed to print properly, just prints a line of 
gobbldegook followed by several blank pages.


--
Dom


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/501ad4e0@rpdom.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread green

Martin Steigerwald wrote at 2012-08-02 13:19 -0500:
 I am quite confident my HP OfficeJet 5610 doesn´t contain such a nasty 
 firmware, as I am using it for a real long time now.

True according to 
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/officejet/officejet_5600_series.html
 
(search for driver plug-in and see note 8.

Some HP printers are supported by HPLIP *with* a proprietary plug-in.  This 
seems to be clearly stated on the printers' support pages as at the above 
link.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-08-02 Thread Brian

On Thu 02 Aug 2012 at 20:28:32 +0100, Dom wrote:

On 02/08/12 19:54, Brian wrote:
On Thu 02 Aug 2012 at 20:17:27 +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote:

Am Montag, 23. Juli 2012 schrieb Brian:

All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
output in PDF format when printing.

Haven´t there been plans to switch CUPS to use PDF internally as well?

May I repeat the URL given previously:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

Having applications produce output in PDF was all part of the plan to
have the complete printing workflow with CUPS use PDF. All the
essentials are now in place. It has been a truly remarkable effort.

It seems to be a good plan. I can see the advantages in it.

A pity it doesn't quite seem to work for me. I use a Brother
HL5250DN printer, which used to work fine.

For a while now I've been unable to print from Iceweasel to that
printer (it works on my Epson Stylus Color 470, although I can't get
the margins set right). I believe this is due to Brother's BRScript
Postscript emulation. I know some fixes are in place for that, but
it still doesn't work - just prints an error page.

Recently gedit has failed to print properly, just prints a line of
gobbldegook followed by several blank pages.

This thread has wandered in some very interesting ways from the original
question posed. For suggestions to solve a specific problem, howver, you
might be better off with opening a new thread.

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120802214845.GD6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-31 Thread Chris Bannister

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter as the 
 default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as good nor as 
 simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies have always showed 
 different needs than users and these jumps are seen differently when 
 you have to hold them as user or as admin.

The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you are
using CUPS, *THEN* you are automatically using a PDF filter paradigm
because it **is considered superior/more robust**.

That was my reading of it. Please, someone correct me if my reading of
Roger's post is incorrect.

The discussion of whether it **actually is** superior/more robust is
irrelevant, and better discussed with the CUPS developers. :-)

-- 
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the 
oppressing. --- Malcolm X


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120731074313.GC17427@tal

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-31 Thread Roger Leigh

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 07:43:13PM +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +, Camaleón wrote:
  I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter as the 
  default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as good nor as 
  simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies have always showed 
  different needs than users and these jumps are seen differently when 
  you have to hold them as user or as admin.
 
 The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you are
 using CUPS, *THEN* you are automatically using a PDF filter paradigm
 because it **is considered superior/more robust**.
 
 The discussion of whether it **actually is** superior/more robust is
 irrelevant, and better discussed with the CUPS developers. :-)

This is pretty much the case.

I'll address a few of the points in this thread here to save writing
many separate replies:

1) What is a PDF printer?  It's a printer you can submit PDF jobs to
   directly.  Whether this is implemented in software/firmware/hardware
   is irrelevant--it just needs to be able to accept it and print it.
   This is completely orthogonal to having a PDF workflow.

2) Having a PDF workflow does not require a PDF printer, any more than
   having a PostScript workflow (as before) required having a
   PostScript printer.  Since CUPS (and LPRng) implement printing
   through filters including ghostscript, one can convert any input
   format to any output format.  The only difference is that the
   intermediary format is now PDF rather than PostScript.

3) PostScript is a crap intermediary format.  You can't do page
   accounting without processing the entire file; PDF can just give
   you a page count.  It can have unbounded complexity and consume
   lots of CPU and disc; and if the pipeline has multiple steps,
   you have to do this multiple times; and again on the printer, if
   it's a PostScript printer.  You can't do accurate colour matching;
   PDF supports embedded colour profiles.  You can't easily do
   rearrangement of the input for n-up, rescaled, or reordered for
   book printing.  These are all things that matter, and which PDF
   makes a great deal easier, faster, and more robust.  PostScript
   is a *lossy* intermediary format in consequence--you lose
   information and get lower quality output if the input made use of
   any features not representable in PostScript.

3) PostScript is a crap input format.  Generating it is a pain; you
   have to output text PostScript, i.e. your program has to generate
   a program.  It's hard to do.  It's hard to use fonts, it's hard to
   use graphics.  It's hard to do lots of things.  And it lacks modern
   graphics primitives such as gradient meshes, opentype fonts,
   transparency, etc. which just aren't representable.  Contrast with
   PDF: we have a multitide of free software libraries which generate
   PDF, making it simple to do.  PNG and JPEG can be embedded directly,
   without having to be encoded and ballooning the filesize, again with
   attached colour profiles.

4) PostScript has the document structuring conventions (DSC), which
   are text comments (%%) in the code; but it's optional, and can be
   incorrect and buggy itself.  PDF has /real/ structure, meaning
   that it's possible to reliably and simply process the document.

5) Most applications used to output PostScript for printing.  They now
   mostly output PDF.  There's a reason for that, linked to (2-4)
   above.  Lots of professional graphics software (e.g. Adobe
   illustrator, inkscape) uses PDF as either the native format or a
   supported graphics format.  It's not just for output.  Even older
   applications such as LaTeX have long been PDF by default (pdflatex,
   now xelatex etc.); DVI and PostScript are still supported, but the
   vast majority of users use a PDF workflow.  As does R.  It's simply
   better on all counts.

6) PDF contains tons of junk features.  That's right, but they are
   completely irrelevant for printing and general use in the world
   outside Adobe.  Printing just uses the sensible subset actually used
   for drawing (obviously).

One could argue that having a programming language as a file format is
useful.  But the main use case is to construct things such as
Mandelbrot fractals during printing.  The only thing this does is to
anger all the other users of your printer as it takes hours to print
a single page.  The reality is, very little software took advantage
of it; it's far easier just to precalculate such things and have a
slightly bigger filesize in this special case.  Are there any examples
of software outputting PostScript containing code any more complex than
abbreviated macro expansions?  The reality is no, and the number of
people writing PostScript by hand is vanishingly small.  For all but
odd esoteric cases, PDF is objectively better.  If you're writing an
application which needs to print, you're going to pick PDF, because
it's what

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-31 Thread Camaleón

On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:43:13 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:

 On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter as the
 default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as good nor as
 simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies have always
 showed different needs than users and these jumps are seen
 differently when you have to hold them as user or as admin.
 
 The understanding I got from reading Roger's post was that if you are
 using CUPS, *THEN* you are automatically using a PDF filter paradigm
 because it **is considered superior/more robust**.

That's what CUPS developers seem to claim (?) but having used PS printers 
and PS backend as default for all these years, I'm a bit reluctant about 
grandiloquent wordings with no more technical proofs on the superiority 
of one on the proposed systems over the other.

Yes, all sources share the same adjectives: a PDF backend is easier but 
I expect more than that to blindly rely on a new printing solution.

 That was my reading of it. Please, someone correct me if my reading of
 Roger's post is incorrect.

No, I think you're got it correctly.

 The discussion of whether it **actually is** superior/more robust is
 irrelevant, and better discussed with the CUPS developers. :-)

That discussion is indeed the key of this sub-thread, if not, why 
touching things that already work? ;-)

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jv8oof$gv6$8...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-30 Thread Camaleón

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 16:39:40 +0100, Brian wrote:

 On Sun 29 Jul 2012 at 14:11:22 +, Camaleón wrote:

  Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed
  do not, just PCL6 and PostScript.
  
  No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
  statement that
  
  . . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
  
  so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.
 
 No? Then I wonder why my company paid the above mentioned $200-300 for
 having a PS module installed in their printers ;-)
 
 Don't ask me. I don't understand it either! Not for sending a PDF file
 directly to the printer, anyway.

(...)

It was a rethoric question, no need to answer. Of course I know why: 
because a PostScript capable printer is a time-proof solution that has 
been working since years... Can't say the same for PDF printers as they 
are too recent :-)

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jv67nu$ltk$8...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-30 Thread Brian

On Mon 30 Jul 2012 at 15:03:26 +, Camaleón wrote:

 On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 16:39:40 +0100, Brian wrote:
 
  On Sun 29 Jul 2012 at 14:11:22 +, Camaleón wrote:
 
   Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed
   do not, just PCL6 and PostScript.
   
   No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
   statement that
   
   . . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
   
   so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.
  
  No? Then I wonder why my company paid the above mentioned $200-300 for
  having a PS module installed in their printers ;-)
  
  Don't ask me. I don't understand it either! Not for sending a PDF file
  directly to the printer, anyway.
 
 (...)
 
 It was a rethoric question, no need to answer. Of course I know why: 
 because a PostScript capable printer is a time-proof solution that has 
 been working since years... Can't say the same for PDF printers as they 
 are too recent :-)

It was a rhetorical answer. I don't know what rules should be followed
when one is encountered so cannot offer you direction.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120730163334.GX6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-30 Thread Steve Dowe

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 23/07/12 20:30, green wrote:

 I do wish there were more hardware manufacturers with a real interest in 
 making their products work well with Linux.  HP is the best I have seen:
 http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/recommended.html

I have had years of success with a Xerox 6300DN.  Nope, it's not cheap
(at the time, costing around £700) but the manufacturer provides PPD
files for a huge range of colour lasers including this, paper handling
has been faultless and print quality is very good indeed.  Not quite up
to the level of a good inkjet on photos, but close enough.

It's fast too.

And very heavy.

So, unless you want nice print outs /and/ a broken back, don't get one ;)

- -- 
Steve Dowe

Warp Universal
http://warp2.me/sd
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAlAWuzEACgkQff0deVwNl4jvtgCfZdYKZDw3YnEqp0MXZiX8IxI2
HhAAnRXiS/PlE2I5ZhQM7TiK01HM1CS2
=uxiL
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/5016bb3d.7030...@warpuniversal.co.uk

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-30 Thread Camaleón

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:33:34 +0100, Brian wrote:

 On Mon 30 Jul 2012 at 15:03:26 +, Camaleón wrote:
 
 On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 16:39:40 +0100, Brian wrote:
 
  On Sun 29 Jul 2012 at 14:11:22 +, Camaleón wrote:
 
   Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I
   managed do not, just PCL6 and PostScript.
   
   No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
   statement that
   
   . . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
   
   so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.
  
  No? Then I wonder why my company paid the above mentioned $200-300
  for having a PS module installed in their printers ;-)
  
  Don't ask me. I don't understand it either! Not for sending a PDF
  file directly to the printer, anyway.
 
 (...)
 
 It was a rethoric question, no need to answer. Of course I know why:
 because a PostScript capable printer is a time-proof solution that
 has been working since years... Can't say the same for PDF printers as
 they are too recent :-)
 
 It was a rhetorical answer. I don't know what rules should be followed
 when one is encountered so cannot offer you direction.

I just wanted to point a scenario where the jump to a PDF filter as the 
default backend can have its troubles and not be nor as good nor as 
simple nor as easy as the white papers say. Companies have always showed 
different needs than users and these jumps are seen differently when 
you have to hold them as user or as admin.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jv6e1v$ltk$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-29 Thread Brian

On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 15:45:44 +, Camaleón wrote:

 On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:17:22 +0100, Brian wrote:
 
  Anyway: a PostScript printer has a PostScript interpreter; a PCL printer
  has a PCL interpreter; a PDF printer has a PDF interpreter. They accept
  print jobs sent directly to them in the supported language.
 
 And that's the key. No transformations are needed, no necessity for 
 interpreting the input, it's direct. When the printer lacks from PCL6 or 
 PS or PDF interpreter you're missing that capability.

Are you really sending everything as Postscript directly to the printer?
Nothing goes through CUPS? Could it be we have different ideas of
'directly'?

 Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed do 
 not, just PCL6 and PostScript.

No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
statement that

. . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.

so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.

Incidentally, nobody sends PCL6 directly to a printer,


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120729112922.GK6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-29 Thread Camaleón

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 12:29:22 +0100, Brian wrote:

 On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 15:45:44 +, Camaleón wrote:
 
 On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:17:22 +0100, Brian wrote:
 
  Anyway: a PostScript printer has a PostScript interpreter; a PCL
  printer has a PCL interpreter; a PDF printer has a PDF interpreter.
  They accept print jobs sent directly to them in the supported
  language.
 
 And that's the key. No transformations are needed, no necessity for
 interpreting the input, it's direct. When the printer lacks from PCL6
 or PS or PDF interpreter you're missing that capability.
 
 Are you really sending everything as Postscript directly to the printer?
 Nothing goes through CUPS? Could it be we have different ideas of
 'directly'?

Sometimes I need to overpass CUPS (or the Windows printing sub-system) 
and directly send a PS file to the printer, it depends on the job. I have 
faced situations were the CUPS queue hung when printing big and complex 
files while using the raw facility went without a glitch.

Of course, this is not a common situation for the joe user.

 Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed do
 not, just PCL6 and PostScript.
 
 No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
 statement that
 
 . . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
 
 so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.

No? Then I wonder why my company paid the above mentioned $200-300 for 
having a PS module installed in their printers ;-)
 
 Incidentally, nobody sends PCL6 directly to a printer,

I think nobody sounds too wide... maybe it's not usual but when you 
only have a PCL6 capable printer and one file fails to print with the 
usual printing system (File → print → printer driver), I assure you will 
try with any option that is available.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jv3ga9$vb5$7...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-29 Thread Brian

On Sun 29 Jul 2012 at 14:11:22 +, Camaleón wrote:

 On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 12:29:22 +0100, Brian wrote:
 
  On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 15:45:44 +, Camaleón wrote:
  
  Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed do
  not, just PCL6 and PostScript.
  
  No, it does not. Does it need to? This subthread began with the
  statement that
  
  . . . . a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
  
  so, if we are to accept that, having one isn't important.
 
 No? Then I wonder why my company paid the above mentioned $200-300 for 
 having a PS module installed in their printers ;-)

Don't ask me. I don't understand it either! Not for sending a PDF file
directly to the printer, anyway.

  Incidentally, nobody sends PCL6 directly to a printer,
 
 I think nobody sounds too wide... maybe it's not usual but when you 
 only have a PCL6 capable printer and one file fails to print with the 
 usual printing system (File → print → printer driver), I assure you will 
 try with any option that is available.

A reasonable point. The print file would have to be already formatted in
PCL to get a useful output when sent directly to the printer. Convert
with Ghostscript, I suppose. Having just done exactly that successfully,
I'll have to withdraw the claim of 'nobody'. :)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120729153940.GO6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-28 Thread Camaleón

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:26:05 +0100, Brian wrote:

 On Fri 27 Jul 2012 at 16:21:42 +, Camaleón wrote:
 
 On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:43:24 +0100, Brian wrote:
  
  Its a balance. Pros and cons. With a PDF printer:
 
 Define a PDF printer. What's that?

(...)

 Because until now I have not seen a thing like 1/ and PostScript
 printer modules are truly costly (it can take up to $200/300) :-)
 
 http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/review/1956699/review-hp-laserjet-cp4525-colour-printer

Uh, what is this link for? :-?

I'm not talking about printers but PostScript modules to enable Adobe 
PostScript 3 language emulation support and these modules are also very 
expensive.

 And please don't complain about the price. You did ask and this is
 debian-user - not debian-market_place. :)

It's a rather costly addon device, of course I complain when is going to 
be deprecated in favor of softy-based PDF converstions ;-)

Anyway, you did not respond to the question about what you consider to be 
a PDF printer.

  I don't think I would want to criticise the PostScript centred
  workflow solely on this.
 
 No, of course, me neither.
 
 But what I wouldn't like to see is a moving to PDF just because the
 sake of moving to something more manageable without having into account
 technical reasons but simplicity and force-joining (that is, if CUPS -
 owned by Apple- moves on PDF, linux will follow without questioning the
 pros and cons). I would like to see, now more than ever, less
 dependency on CUPS (by dependency I mean here that it would be nice
 to have different alternatives as powerful as CUPS).
 
 Moving to a PDF workflow was a considered decision based on technical
 considerations. 

You mean the above mentioned four easies? :-P

 A good deal of the CUPS printing system is now managed directly by 
 Debian/Ubuntu and not by upstream.

That's good but still dependant of the main CUPS development done by Apple.

 Well, I still can't speak on pdftopdf because is too new (there you
 have a con) and not present in my system while pstops is:

(...)
 
 If you are using Lenny, what do you expect!

I expect to use a solution/system/method (you can call it as you want) that 
has been tested harshly over the years and has been working okay.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jv0gjq$108$5...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-28 Thread Brian

On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 10:58:02 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:26:05 +0100, Brian wrote:

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/review/1956699/review-hp-laserjet-cp4525-colour-printer

Uh, what is this link for? :-?

You didn't read all of the content? It matches your 1/. Here is
another one:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/18972-18972-3328060-15077-236268-3965798-3965802-3965808.html?dnr=1

[Snip]

Anyway, you did not respond to the question about what you consider to be
a PDF printer.

I rather think I did. Twice now.

Moving to a PDF workflow was a considered decision based on technical
considerations.

You mean the above mentioned four easies? :-P

No. I mean taking the link you already have

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat
,

reading it as a whole and following up on how the system was developed.
The third and fourth paragraphs of Roger Leigh's post might help with
any searches.

A good deal of the CUPS printing system is now managed directly by
Debian/Ubuntu and not by upstream.

That's good but still dependant of the main CUPS development done by Apple.

It would have been more accurate if I had mentioned the Linux Foundation
and OpenPrinting instead of just Debian/Ubuntu.

If you are using Lenny, what do you expect!

I expect to use a solution/system/method (you can call it as you want) that
has been tested harshly over the years and has been working okay.

Some of us have been doing precisely that (using and testing) for three
or four years. When you get to Squeeze or Wheezy you can join in too.

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-28 Thread Camaleón

On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 13:49:53 +0100, Brian wrote:

On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 10:58:02 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:26:05 +0100, Brian wrote:

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/review/1956699/review-hp-laserjet-cp4525-colour-printer

Uh, what is this link for? :-?

You didn't read all of the content?

What content? The advertizing? Of course not, unless you pointed me to
the interesting part.

It matches your 1/. Here is another one:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/18972-18972-3328060-15077-236268-3965798-3965802-3965808.html?dnr=1

Ah, you must be referring to:

***
Print languages, standard HP PCL 6; HP PCL 5c; HP postscript level 3
emulation; direct PDF printing v 1.4
^
***

But I already knew there are printers in the market that direct print to
PDF (as well as options 2/ and 3/ are also possible). I did not asked
about that. I asked what *you* were speaking/referring to when you talked
about PDF printers.

Side note: do you known what's the required/recommended memory to
directly print to PDF? And what happens with PDF v1.7, will you have to
buy a new module for supporting the new upcoming standards? :-)

[Snip]

Anyway, you did not respond to the question about what you consider to
be a PDF printer.

I rather think I did. Twice now.

I think you didn't. You only sent a link with no further indication,
that's not a valid answer for a select the one that applies (1/, 2/ or 3/)
test ;-)

Moving to a PDF workflow was a considered decision based on technical
considerations.

You mean the above mentioned four easies? :-P

No. I mean taking the link you already have

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat
,

There are no technical reasons (neither what's the real gain for users)
listed there but how to start using the new filter facility within CUPS.

reading it as a whole and following up on how the system was developed.
The third and fourth paragraphs of Roger Leigh's post might help with
any searches.

I've found another doc comparing for options:

http://www.adobe.com/print/features/psvspdf/

But I'd say the author is not neutral ;-)

A good deal of the CUPS printing system is now managed directly by
Debian/Ubuntu and not by upstream.

That's good but still dependant of the main CUPS development done by
Apple.

It would have been more accurate if I had mentioned the Linux Foundation
and OpenPrinting instead of just Debian/Ubuntu.

The main issue still remains: CUPS is Apple's baby.

If you are using Lenny, what do you expect!

I expect to use a solution/system/method (you can call it as you want)
that has been tested harshly over the years and has been working okay.

Some of us have been doing precisely that (using and testing) for three
or four years. When you get to Squeeze or Wheezy you can join in too.

All my printers support PostScript directly, why should I ignore that fact?

Greetings,

--
Camaleón

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-28 Thread Brian

On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 13:37:22 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 13:49:53 +0100, Brian wrote:

It matches your 1/. Here is another one:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/18972-18972-3328060-15077-236268-3965798-3965802-3965808.html?dnr=1

Ah, you must be referring to:

***
Print languages, standard HP PCL 6; HP PCL 5c; HP postscript level 3
emulation; direct PDF printing v 1.4
^
***

Your multiple choice quiz had

1/ A physical device (printer) with physical PDF interpreter
on it (PDF add-on card)?

and

Because until now I have not seen a thing like 1/ . . , .

Looks like I misunderstood you.

Anyway: a PostScript printer has a PostScript interpreter; a PCL printer
has a PCL interpreter; a PDF printer has a PDF interpreter. They accept
print jobs sent directly to them in the supported language.

I've no idea, really. The two links I supplied mention 0.5 GB and 1,0 GB.

No. I mean taking the link you already have

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat
,

There are no technical reasons (neither what's the real gain for users)
listed there but how to start using the new filter facility within CUPS.

We'll have to disagree on that, then

reading it as a whole and following up on how the system was developed.
The third and fourth paragraphs of Roger Leigh's post might help with
any searches.

I've found another doc comparing for options:

http://www.adobe.com/print/features/psvspdf/

But I'd say the author is not neutral ;-)

Possibly not. But he should be expected to know what he is writing about.

Some of us have been doing precisely that (using and testing) for three
or four years. When you get to Squeeze or Wheezy you can join in too.

All my printers support PostScript directly, why should I ignore that fact?

You shouldn't. Just keep sending PostScript to CUPS and it will be printed.

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-28 Thread Camaleón

On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:17:22 +0100, Brian wrote:

On Sat 28 Jul 2012 at 13:37:22 +, Camaleón wrote:

(...)

But I already knew there are printers in the market that direct print
to PDF (as well as options 2/ and 3/ are also possible). I did not
asked about that. I asked what *you* were speaking/referring to when
you talked about PDF printers.

Your multiple choice quiz had

1/ A physical device (printer) with physical PDF interpreter
on it (PDF add-on card)?

and

Because until now I have not seen a thing like 1/ . . , .

Looks like I misunderstood you.

No, you read it right.

The printers that I'm aware about their PDF capabities used system 2/
instead 1/, that is, a software (driver/firmware) to do the transform
from job input to PDF output. I'm unsure about how the HP printer you
mentioned does the PDF job, internally.

And that's the key. No transformations are needed, no necessity for
interpreting the input, it's direct. When the printer lacks from PCL6 or
PS or PDF interpreter you're missing that capability.

Does your printer integrate a PDF interprerter? The ones I managed do
not, just PCL6 and PostScript.

I've no idea, really. The two links I supplied mention 0.5 GB and 1,0
GB.

That's the stock memory that comes with the printer (500 MiB) and the
maximum allowed (up to 1 GiB). Those are very high numbers not
available for the vast majority of the printing devices.

Anyway, want I wanted to say is that if PostScript required a good amount
of memory so the job outputs quickly, PDF can even require even more. Not
funny...

No. I mean taking the link you already have

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat
,

There are no technical reasons (neither what's the real gain for users)
listed there but how to start using the new filter facility within
CUPS.

We'll have to disagree on that, then

There's little room for disagreements here; quod scripsi, scripsi :-)

reading it as a whole and following up on how the system was
developed. The third and fourth paragraphs of Roger Leigh's post
might help with any searches.

I've found another doc comparing for options:

http://www.adobe.com/print/features/psvspdf/

But I'd say the author is not neutral ;-)

Possibly not. But he should be expected to know what he is writing
about.

Sure, but there can be another interests behind the words.

Some of us have been doing precisely that (using and testing) for
three or four years. When you get to Squeeze or Wheezy you can join
in too.

All my printers support PostScript directly, why should I ignore that
fact?

You shouldn't. Just keep sending PostScript to CUPS and it will be
printed.

That's indeed my plan :-)

Greetings,

--
Camaleón

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Gaël DONVAL

Le jeudi 26 juillet 2012 à 23:14 +0100, Brian a écrit :
 I'll take the 'whatever'.
 
lp -d print_queue -o raw test.ps
 
 goes to the printer (the machine) without any filtering and gives a nice
 printout if the machine understands PostScript.
 
lp -d print_queue -o raw test.pdf
 
 also does the same but the printout will not please you unless the
 machine has a PDF interpreter.

Well, on my system it prints fine. I'm glad to know my PS printer can
understand PDF as well (and raw ascii text too BTW) :)

Now just remove the -o raw and you can print whatever you want … This
was my point: you use lp which is provided by a package which does all
the filtering work for you (except if you explicitly tell it not to do).

Should you say you had to pipe your file directly to the printer, the
choice of the output format could become a serious issue for you. But
you have filters. Then I don't understand why you care about the output
format of your applications.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1343383234.4374.28.ca...@p76-nom-gd.cnrs-imn.fr

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Camaleón

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:26:37 +0100, Brian wrote:

On Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 17:10:12 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:27:26 +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:

No, while PDF does perhaps allow such things, it's far far better
than PostScript.

(...)

PostScript is a languge for machines not for human beings. It does not
have to be easy but accurate. One only have to read the full
specification manual of both to start guessing why (hint: one of them
has around 200 less pages) :-)

(note that I don't want my printer to read but interpret the
document I am sending it exactly as is and PS complexity is precisely
for doing so)

Roger Leigh gave a good explanation of the role played by PDF in the
CUPS printing process on Debian. You snipped most of it, including this:

A native PDF workflow is far, far better and vastly more flexible
than a native PostScript workflow.

Time will prove the role of PDF in the printing chain process. By now, I
only can say that my printers were manufactured to speak PS and not
PDF, so any additional convertion will only waste time to get the job
done and printer resources.

To understand its importance you need a better reference than the one
given to a page on the cups website a few posts back. For example, there
is:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

Let's recap to have a better understanding:

***
(...) This format has many important advantages, especially

PDF is the common platform-independent web format for printable documents
Portable
Easy post-processing (N-up, booklets, scaling, ...)
Easy Color management support
Easy High color depth support ( 8bit/channel)
Easy Transparency support
Smaller files
Linux workflow gets closer to Mac OS X
***

Look, I was not very deviated in my thought... There are four easies
listed as advantadges. Perfect, but I prefer accurateness over easiness
for the output jobs, thanks :-)

In addition.. do we really want to get closer to MacOS X? If so, why?
Just becasue CUPS is MacOS tool? The far we are from anything that smells
to Apple the better for the linux users ;-)

To illustrate the difference between printing in the olden days and now
we'll take someone who has set up a print queue to send a job to a
printer as PostScript. A text file is sent to CUPS, which filters it.

On Lenny: text -- texttops -- pstops printer

On Squeeze: text -- texttopdf -- pdftopdf -- pdftops printer

Note that the printer still gets PostScript (which should make you
happy) and the advantages of the PDF workflow which have been described
occur at the pdftopdf filtering stage.

How can be that adding an extra step (which increases time and resources)
is something good? And good for who (developers, printers or users)?

Aside note: I always have obtained better results when converting files
(mostly with image/binary content) to PostScript than PDF.

Greetings,

--
Camaleón

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Brian

On Fri 27 Jul 2012 at 12:00:34 +0200, Gaël DONVAL wrote:

 Le jeudi 26 juillet 2012 à 23:14 +0100, Brian a écrit :
  I'll take the 'whatever'.
  
 lp -d print_queue -o raw test.ps
  
  goes to the printer (the machine) without any filtering and gives a nice
  printout if the machine understands PostScript.
  
 lp -d print_queue -o raw test.pdf
  
  also does the same but the printout will not please you unless the
  machine has a PDF interpreter.
 
 Well, on my system it prints fine. I'm glad to know my PS printer can
 understand PDF as well (and raw ascii text too BTW) :)

Interesting, I might investige getting one. Mine prints page after page
of raw, stepped PDF code.
 
 Now just remove the -o raw and you can print whatever you want … This
 was my point: you use lp which is provided by a package which does all
 the filtering work for you (except if you explicitly tell it not to do).

I understood this from the start but cannot see how it in any way alters
what I originally said.
 
 Should you say you had to pipe your file directly to the printer, the
 choice of the output format could become a serious issue for you. But
 you have filters. Then I don't understand why you care about the output
 format of your applications.

It is an undisputed fact that an application such as Iceweasel always
feeds PDF to CUPS when printing, so with your printer the filtering
chain is

   PDF -- pdftopdf  Printer

Which is rather nice. Some people would see the lack of involvement of
GhostScript as a plus. If Iceweasel had PostScript as its output there
would in most cases be an extra pstopdf conversion. One's attitude
towards caring about such things would depend on how having a standard
print job format as PDF is viewed.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120727151247.GD6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Brian

On Fri 27 Jul 2012 at 14:15:56 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:26:37 +0100, Brian wrote:

Roger Leigh gave a good explanation of the role played by PDF in the
CUPS printing process on Debian. You snipped most of it, including this:

A native PDF workflow is far, far better and vastly more flexible
than a native PostScript workflow.

Time will prove the role of PDF in the printing chain process. By now, I
only can say that my printers were manufactured to speak PS and not
PDF,

They *are* given PostScript. No problem there.

so any additional convertion will only waste time to get the job
done and printer resources.

If you only ever send PostScript to CUPS and have a particular type of
PPD file there will be no extra conversions. The chain would be:

PostScript -- pstops Printer

Isn't CUPS wonderful? Surely there are no grounds for complaint here?
However, you do lose any advantages pdftopdf might have provided.

Send anything other than PostScript (apart from PDF) and there has to be
a couple of conversions, but the same is true for the defunct PostScript
workflow. So its swings and roundabouts, except the PDF swings are better
and much more flexible.

To understand its importance you need a better reference than the one
given to a page on the cups website a few posts back. For example, there
is:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

Let's recap to have a better understanding:

***
(...) This format has many important advantages, especially

Look, I was not very deviated in my thought... There are four easies
listed as advantadges. Perfect, but I prefer accurateness over easiness
for the output jobs, thanks :-)

Being easily understood does not diminish their advantages. As for the
PostScript workflow being more accurate than the PDF workflow I do not
know. You would have to substantiate that.

In addition.. do we really want to get closer to MacOS X? If so, why?
Just becasue CUPS is MacOS tool? The far we are from anything that smells
to Apple the better for the linux users ;-)

I don't do OS wars but will point out that printing is a cross-platform
activity.

On Lenny: text -- texttops -- pstops printer

On Squeeze: text -- texttopdf -- pdftopdf -- pdftops printer

Note that the printer still gets PostScript (which should make you
happy) and the advantages of the PDF workflow which have been described
occur at the pdftopdf filtering stage.

How can be that adding an extra step (which increases time and resources)
is something good? And good for who (developers, printers or users)?

Its a balance. Pros and cons. With a PDF printer:

On Lenny: PDF -- pdftops -- pstops -- pstopdf Printer

On Squeeze: PDF -- pdftopdf Printer

I don't think I would want to criticise the PostScript centred workflow
solely on this.

The heart of the matter could be seen as pdftopdf versus pstops. The
advantages pdftopdf have been adequately covered - an earlier mail and
points 2 to 5 above. Perhaps you could give us the advantages of pstops
and what we are missing out on when it is not used.

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Camaleón

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:43:24 +0100, Brian wrote:

 On Fri 27 Jul 2012 at 14:15:56 +, Camaleón wrote:

(...)
 
 How can be that adding an extra step (which increases time and
 resources) is something good? And good for who (developers,
 printers or users)?
 
 Its a balance. Pros and cons. With a PDF printer:

Define a PDF printer. What's that? 

1/ A physical device (printer) with physical PDF interpreter on it (PDF 
add-on card)? 

2/ A physical device (printer) with logical PDF interpreter on it 
(software that runs the convertion)? 

3/ A software device (virtual printer) with logical PDF interpreter on it 
(code that runs the convertion)?

Because until now I have not seen a thing like 1/ and PostScript 
printer modules are truly costly (it can take up to $200/300) :-)
 
On Lenny:   PDF -- pdftops  -- pstops -- pstopdf  Printer
 
On Squeeze: PDF -- pdftopdf  Printer
 
 I don't think I would want to criticise the PostScript centred workflow
 solely on this.

No, of course, me neither. 

But what I wouldn't like to see is a moving to PDF just because the sake 
of moving to something more manageable without having into account 
technical reasons but simplicity and force-joining (that is, if CUPS -
owned by Apple- moves on PDF, linux will follow without questioning the 
pros and cons). I would like to see, now more than ever, less 
dependency on CUPS (by dependency I mean here that it would be nice 
to have different alternatives as powerful as CUPS).

 The heart of the matter could be seen as pdftopdf versus pstops. The
 advantages pdftopdf have been adequately covered - an earlier mail and
 points 2 to 5 above. Perhaps you could give us the advantages of pstops
 and what we are missing out on when it is not used.

Well, I still can't speak on pdftopdf because is too new (there you have 
a con) and not present in my system while pstops is:

sm01@stt008:~$ locate pstops
/etc/cups/oopstops.convs
/etc/cups/oopstops.types
/usr/lib/cups/filter/oopstops
/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops
sm01@stt008:~$ locate pdftopdf
sm01@stt008:~$ 

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/juuf6m$2bd$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-27 Thread Brian

On Fri 27 Jul 2012 at 16:21:42 +, Camaleón wrote:

 On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:43:24 +0100, Brian wrote:
  
  Its a balance. Pros and cons. With a PDF printer:
 
 Define a PDF printer. What's that? 
 
 1/ A physical device (printer) with physical PDF interpreter on it (PDF 
 add-on card)? 
 
 2/ A physical device (printer) with logical PDF interpreter on it 
 (software that runs the convertion)? 
 
 3/ A software device (virtual printer) with logical PDF interpreter on it 
 (code that runs the convertion)?
 
 Because until now I have not seen a thing like 1/ and PostScript 
 printer modules are truly costly (it can take up to $200/300) :-)

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/review/1956699/review-hp-laserjet-cp4525-colour-printer

And please don't complain about the price. You did ask and this is
debian-user - not debian-market_place. :)

 On Lenny:   PDF -- pdftops  -- pstops -- pstopdf  Printer
  
 On Squeeze: PDF -- pdftopdf  Printer
  
  I don't think I would want to criticise the PostScript centred workflow
  solely on this.
 
 No, of course, me neither. 
 
 But what I wouldn't like to see is a moving to PDF just because the sake 
 of moving to something more manageable without having into account 
 technical reasons but simplicity and force-joining (that is, if CUPS -
 owned by Apple- moves on PDF, linux will follow without questioning the 
 pros and cons). I would like to see, now more than ever, less 
 dependency on CUPS (by dependency I mean here that it would be nice 
 to have different alternatives as powerful as CUPS).

Moving to a PDF workflow was a considered decision based on technical
considerations. A good deal of the CUPS printing system is now managed
directly by Debian/Ubuntu and not by upstream.

  The heart of the matter could be seen as pdftopdf versus pstops. The
  advantages pdftopdf have been adequately covered - an earlier mail and
  points 2 to 5 above. Perhaps you could give us the advantages of pstops
  and what we are missing out on when it is not used.
 
 Well, I still can't speak on pdftopdf because is too new (there you have 
 a con) and not present in my system while pstops is:
 
 sm01@stt008:~$ locate pstops
 /etc/cups/oopstops.convs
 /etc/cups/oopstops.types
 /usr/lib/cups/filter/oopstops
 /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops
 sm01@stt008:~$ locate pdftopdf
 sm01@stt008:~$ 

If you are using Lenny, what do you expect!


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120727172605.GF6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Gaël DONVAL

Le mercredi 25 juillet 2012 à 21:34 +0100, Brian a écrit :
 On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
 
  On Mi, 25 iul 12, 21:18:19, Brian wrote:
   On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
   
On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
 
 All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
 output in PDF format when printing.

PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript
   
   An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
   that
   
. . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?
   
   I'll rephrase what I said previously:
   
   No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when printing.
  
  I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
 
 Are you using the word 'printer' to refer to the actual physical machine
 which does the printing or are you using it as a shorthand for 'printer
 queue' or 'print queue'?
 
 
I might have totally missed the point: I am by no way a printer* guru,
but I have yet to see someone do a
cat file.ps  /dev/lpr0 (or whatever)
to print a file.

What the guy wanted was just to be sure that in 5-10 years, his printer
would still work even if the blobs were not to be released anymore.

Three goods points were raised:
1) Postscript printers (advertised so) are great in that regard because
they only need a PPD (ASCII) file to work. This is not the only way to
be sure the printer will work in 10 years but this is the easiest (BTW,
I have never heard of someone complaining because some binary blobs for
his printer were not available anymore...).
2) Even with open source drivers, you cannot control the firmware of the
printer: some printers are programmed to force you to visit your
reseller once in a while for maintenance or just stop working.
3) CUPS is most certainly what will be used to manage the queue and talk
to the printer. CUPS will translate everything that is sent to it to
some dialect the printer can understand.

Am I wrong somewhere? Did I overlooked something important here?


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1343300612.4387.26.ca...@p76-nom-gd.cnrs-imn.fr

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Camaleón

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

 On Mi, 25 iul 12, 21:18:19, Brian wrote:
 On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
 
  On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
   
   All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
   output in PDF format when printing.
  
  PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript
 
 An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
 that
 
  . . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?
 
 I'll rephrase what I said previously:
 
 No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when
 printing.
 
 I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.

And better than PDF, I'd say.

PostScript specification is by far a more professionally-oriented 
language that PDF format (aside comment: last time I checked you could 
embed a 3D video animation on a PDF sheet and all kind of 
dynamicallities... geez!).

Sadly, I can guess the why of this moving¹ :-(

***
Note: While PostScript is currently the defacto-standard print job file 
format/language for UNIX-based applications, it is slowly being phased 
out in favor of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) which offers 
many advantages over PostScript. *Mac OS X uses PDF as the primary print 
job file format* and Linux is making the transition. Both PostScript and 
PDF are complex formats, and we highly recommend using high-level 
toolkits whenever possible to create your print jobs.
***

Hint: *bolded text* is mine.

¹http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.5/spec-postscript.html

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jurkr0$tcf$7...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Roger Leigh

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 02:39:29PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
  
  No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when
  printing.
  
  I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
 
 And better than PDF, I'd say.
 
 PostScript specification is by far a more professionally-oriented 
 language that PDF format (aside comment: last time I checked you could 
 embed a 3D video animation on a PDF sheet and all kind of 
 dynamicallities... geez!).

No, while PDF does perhaps allow such things, it's far far better than
PostScript.

PostScript is difficult to process due to the fact that it's a fully-
featured Turing-complete language.  It's difficult to parse to find
page boundaries since you have to process the whole document to be
sure.  There are standards to mark up the PostScript to make this
simpler, but they are optional and can be wrong.  Processing it can
have unbounded complexity.

PDF is a subset of PostScript and does not have a Turing-complete
grammar.  It means it's possible to process it very fast, and it
has structure which PostScript does not.  For example, selecting a
subset of pages is very fast, and doesn't require processing all the
pages in the whole file to extract a few pages.  So things like page
subsetting, rescaling, n-up printing, etc. become trivial.  Also,
take a simple task like copying some text out of a PDF; it's easy,
because it has a higher-level structure than PostScript.  Doing it
with PostScript is decidedly non-trivial.  Not only do you have to
find the text (which might be printed letter by letter), you also have
to deal with font subsetting and encoding issues.  It might even be
bitmaps.

PDF is also a superset in other areas.  For example, it has support
for transparency, gradients (including meshes) and other advanced
drawing and rendering which PostScript can't support.  If you print
this as PostScript, it has to approximate the transparency, gradients
etc. with thousands of smaller objects, and the file size can balloon
to tens of times its original size (I've had multi-gigabyte PostScript
files generated from tens to hundreds of megabyte PDFs).  Being able to
print natively as PDF means you can just transfer the PDF and avoid
such lossy conversion.  It also supports colour profiles for accurate
colour reproduction.  A native PDF workflow is far, far better and
vastly more flexible than a native PostScript workflow.

PDF/A is normally used for printing--it's the sensible subset without
all the pointless bells and whistles.  PDF is the successor to
PostScript, which eliminates the mistakes of the format (being fully
programmable, and lacking in many modern features), while adding a
few of its own (stupid additional features).  Ignore those extra
features, and it's a much, much better solution than PostScript.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
  .''`.  Roger Leigh
 : :' :  Debian GNU/Linuxhttp://people.debian.org/~rleigh/
 `. `'   schroot and sbuild  http://alioth.debian.org/projects/buildd-tools
   `-GPG Public Key  F33D 281D 470A B443 6756 147C 07B3 C8BC 4083 E800


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120726162726.gw25...@codelibre.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Camaleón

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:27:26 +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:

 On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 02:39:29PM +, Camaleón wrote:
 On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
  
  No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when
  printing.
  
  I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
 
 And better than PDF, I'd say.
 
 PostScript specification is by far a more professionally-oriented
 language that PDF format (aside comment: last time I checked you could
 embed a 3D video animation on a PDF sheet and all kind of
 dynamicallities... geez!).
 
 No, while PDF does perhaps allow such things, it's far far better than
 PostScript.

(...)

PostScript is a languge for machines not for human beings. It does not 
have to be easy but accurate. One only have to read the full 
specification manual of both to start guessing why (hint: one of them 
has around 200 less pages) :-)

(note that I don't want my printer to read but interpret the document 
I am sending it exactly as is and PS complexity is precisely for doing 
so)

 PDF/A is normally used for printing--it's the sensible subset without
 all the pointless bells and whistles.  PDF is the successor to
 PostScript, which eliminates the mistakes of the format (being fully
 programmable, and lacking in many modern features), while adding a few
 of its own (stupid additional features).  Ignore those extra features,
 and it's a much, much better solution than PostScript.

You say successor, I read simplification and simplifying has always 
its drawbacks and lots of backward incompatibilities.

Sorry, but my reluctancy is because PDF was born for a completely 
different work (mainly presentation and document [compa|porta]tibility), 
not to be editable nor for printer machines. If PDF wants to become a 
valid successor of PS it will have to pass the usual ~10 years to proof 
its validity in the real world :-)

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jurtlk$tcf$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Brian

On Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 13:03:32 +0200, Gaël DONVAL wrote:

 Le mercredi 25 juillet 2012 à 21:34 +0100, Brian a écrit :
  On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
   
   I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
  
  Are you using the word 'printer' to refer to the actual physical machine
  which does the printing or are you using it as a shorthand for 'printer
  queue' or 'print queue'?
  
 I might have totally missed the point: I am by no way a printer* guru,
 but I have yet to see someone do a cat file.ps  /dev/lpr0 (or
 whatever) to print a file.

I'll take the 'whatever'.

   lp -d print_queue -o raw test.ps

goes to the printer (the machine) without any filtering and gives a nice
printout if the machine understands PostScript.

   lp -d print_queue -o raw test.pdf

also does the same but the printout will not please you unless the
machine has a PDF interpreter.

From this you might conclude a PS printer is not necessarily a PDF
printer.

There are two meanings in common usage attached to the word 'printer'.
Using the second one may lead to a different conclusion,


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120726221440.GA6660@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-26 Thread Brian

On Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 17:10:12 +, Camaleón wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:27:26 +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:

No, while PDF does perhaps allow such things, it's far far better than
PostScript.

(...)

(note that I don't want my printer to read but interpret the document
I am sending it exactly as is and PS complexity is precisely for doing
so)

Roger Leigh gave a good explanation of the role played by PDF in the
CUPS printing process on Debian. You snipped most of it, including this:

A native PDF workflow is far, far better and vastly more
flexible than a native PostScript workflow.

To understand its importance you need a better reference than the one
given to a page on the cups website a few posts back. For example, there
is:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

On Lenny: text -- texttops -- pstops printer

On Squeeze: text -- texttopdf -- pdftopdf -- pdftops printer

Note that the printer still gets PostScript (which should make you
happy) and the advantages of the PDF workflow which have been described
occur at the pdftopdf filtering stage.

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-25 Thread Andrei POPESCU

On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
 
 All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
 output in PDF format when printing.

PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-25 Thread Brian

On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

 On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
  
  All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
  output in PDF format when printing.
 
 PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript

An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
that

 . . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?

I'll rephrase what I said previously:

No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when printing.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120725201819.GM7631@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-25 Thread Andrei POPESCU

On Mi, 25 iul 12, 21:18:19, Brian wrote:
 On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
 
  On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
   
   All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
   output in PDF format when printing.
  
  PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript
 
 An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
 that
 
  . . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?
 
 I'll rephrase what I said previously:
 
 No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when printing.

I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-25 Thread Brian

On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

 On Mi, 25 iul 12, 21:18:19, Brian wrote:
  On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
  
   On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:

All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
output in PDF format when printing.
   
   PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript
  
  An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
  that
  
   . . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?
  
  I'll rephrase what I said previously:
  
  No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when printing.
 
 I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.

Are you using the word 'printer' to refer to the actual physical machine
which does the printing or are you using it as a shorthand for 'printer
queue' or 'print queue'?


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120725203429.GN7631@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-24 Thread Gaël DONVAL

 All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
 output in PDF format when printing.

Yes but CUPS should handle that for you automatically.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1343133419.20371.3.ca...@p76-nom-gd.cnrs-imn.fr

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Teemu Likonen

Registros Web [2012-07-23 12:47:27 +0200] wrote:

 Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
 100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
 using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
 printer.

I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection. They use
simple PPD files (plain text files) which describe printer's features.
The manufacturer should ship such file with the printer.

Also, PostScript printers can be used with generic PostScript printer
driver so you don't need to install any drivers.

Ethernet connection allows you to plug the printer to your home
NAT/router and use it from any computer behind the router. It also means
web-based configuration.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fw8ig1zt@mithlond.arda

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Eduardo M KALINOWSKI


On 07/23/2012 07:47 AM, Registros Web wrote:

Hi all,

Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
printer.


If you buy a printer that supports Postscript then you should be set 
without requiring any driver, as Linux applications generally output 
Postscript when printing.


--
Eduardo M KALINOWSKI
edua...@kalinowski.com.br


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/500d35ad.2080...@kalinowski.com.br

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Registros Web

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Teemu Likonen tliko...@iki.fi wrote:
 Registros Web [2012-07-23 12:47:27 +0200] wrote:

 Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
 100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
 using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
 printer.

 I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection. They use
 simple PPD files (plain text files) which describe printer's features.
 The manufacturer should ship such file with the printer.

 Also, PostScript printers can be used with generic PostScript printer
 driver so you don't need to install any drivers.

 Ethernet connection allows you to plug the printer to your home
 NAT/router and use it from any computer behind the router. It also means
 web-based configuration.


 --
 To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
 with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
 Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fw8ig1zt@mithlond.arda


PostScript sounds great guys but, how do I now if a printer is a
PostScript printer? Do you know of any brand that makes then?


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/cap4bfpygx_yjpowmi6c_j2ar1aj_yqijqf2un24gng7tp4o...@mail.gmail.com

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Stan Hoeppner

On 7/23/2012 6:17 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:

 I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection.

LEXMARK E260dn, monochrome laser:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828106506
$150 USD

LEXMARK C540n, color laser:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828106512
$363 USD

Both do Postcript 3 emulation, as well as PCL5/6.

-- 
Stan


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/500d3ca4.7000...@hardwarefreak.com

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Karen Lewellen

...but how would one print with a word processor written to look for the
printer on a printer port under the Ethernet suggestion below?

Karen

On Mon, 23 Jul 2012, Registros Web wrote:

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Teemu Likonen tliko...@iki.fi wrote:

Registros Web [2012-07-23 12:47:27 +0200] wrote:

Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
printer.

I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection. They use
simple PPD files (plain text files) which describe printer's features.
The manufacturer should ship such file with the printer.

Also, PostScript printers can be used with generic PostScript printer
driver so you don't need to install any drivers.

Ethernet connection allows you to plug the printer to your home
NAT/router and use it from any computer behind the router. It also means
web-based configuration.

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fw8ig1zt@mithlond.arda

PostScript sounds great guys but, how do I now if a printer is a
PostScript printer? Do you know of any brand that makes then?

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive:
http://lists.debian.org/cap4bfpygx_yjpowmi6c_j2ar1aj_yqijqf2un24gng7tp4o...@mail.gmail.com

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive:
http://lists.debian.org/pine.bsf.4.64.1207230757040.59...@server1.shellworld.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Gaël DONVAL

 ...but how would one print with a word processor written to look for the 
 printer on a printer port under the Ethernet suggestion below?
 Karen
 
Not sure whether I understood you well. But on most systems, one use
CUPS to manage printing stuff. You just have to add your ethernet
printer to the printer list and then you can print from any application.


About open source drivers, in some countries, you can cancel a sale
within a limited period of time at no cost. In others, you just have to
state that the printer is not working on your system to get a refund.
Why not just buy a printer, try the different drivers and see if it
requires some binary blobs? With HP printers for instance, you can try
hplib. If it is working, then you are not using binary blobs. If it says
you need to run hp-setup, then you most likely need one of these. But
even there, you can try other drivers (foomatic for instance) which
could provide an alternative (free) driver for your printer... I have an
HP printer which would have required to install HP blobs, but it works
very well with foomatic (postscript): no blobs on my computer. :)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/1343047523.32132.40.ca...@p76-nom-gd.cnrs-imn.fr

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Jochen Spieker

Registros Web:
 
 PostScript sounds great guys but, how do I now if a printer is a
 PostScript printer? Do you know of any brand that makes then?

Postscript compatibility should always be listed in the printer's specs.
It is probably not written on the box in bold letters, but the
manufacturer's website mentions it if it is there.

Printers with an ethernet interface probably always include Postscript
support.

J.
-- 
I wish I could achieve a 'just stepped out of the salon' look more
often. Or at least once.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Teemu Likonen

Stan Hoeppner [2012-07-23 06:59:32 -0500] wrote:

 On 7/23/2012 6:17 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:
 I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection.

 LEXMARK E260dn, monochrome laser:
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828106506
 $150 USD

 LEXMARK C540n, color laser:
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828106512
 $363 USD

I've happy with this for two and half years:
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/printers/ML-2851ND/XAA

Some say that HP laser printers are good.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87wr1uk3o9@mithlond.arda

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Brian

On Mon 23 Jul 2012 at 14:11:57 +, Hendrik Boom wrote:

 A fair number of printers that do postscript are actually ghostscript 
 printers.  Technically, ghostscript is nonfree, but when I investigated a 
 while ago, each version of ghostscript remanins proprietary for about two 
 years, and is then released free.

A better way of looking at it is: Printers may come with PostScript
interpreters. GhostScript can generate the PostScript to send to them.

GhostScript has been released under the GNU General Public Licence for
some time now. The situation you describe (first releasing under a
non-free licence) no longer exists.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120723170316.GH7631@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Brian

On Mon 23 Jul 2012 at 08:29:49 -0300, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:

 On 07/23/2012 07:47 AM, Registros Web wrote:
 Hi all,
 
 Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
 100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
 using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
 printer.
 
 If you buy a printer that supports Postscript then you should be set
 without requiring any driver, as Linux applications generally output
 Postscript when printing.

All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
output in PDF format when printing.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120723170545.GI7631@desktop

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Doug


On 07/23/2012 07:17 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:

Registros Web [2012-07-23 12:47:27 +0200] wrote:


Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
printer.

I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection. They use
simple PPD files (plain text files) which describe printer's features.
The manufacturer should ship such file with the printer.

Also, PostScript printers can be used with generic PostScript printer
driver so you don't need to install any drivers.

Ethernet connection allows you to plug the printer to your home
NAT/router and use it from any computer behind the router. It also means
web-based configuration.



I second that Ethernet suggestion.  I have an old HP LaserJet that
never heard of Ethernet, but I bought a hardware device that converts
Ethernet input to parallel for a printer, and now I can use that printer
from 3 computers that all connect to the same router.  Then, just
recently, I bought a Canon all-in-one that has an Ethernet port, and
now I can use that from all three computers also.  It's wonderful--
you don't have to know anything about networking, and the printer(s)
will work whatever the operating system might be on the source end.

--doug

--
Blessed are the peacekeepers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. 
--A.M. Greeley


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/500d84e6.6000...@optonline.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Doug


On 07/23/2012 07:51 AM, Registros Web wrote:

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Teemu Likonentliko...@iki.fi  wrote:

Registros Web [2012-07-23 12:47:27 +0200] wrote:


Im about to buy a printer and want to make sure I get one that uses
100% free software, no blobs or proprietary drivers, so I can get on
using it even if the manufacturer decides to cease support of the
printer.

I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection. They use
simple PPD files (plain text files) which describe printer's features.
The manufacturer should ship such file with the printer.

Also, PostScript printers can be used with generic PostScript printer
driver so you don't need to install any drivers.

Ethernet connection allows you to plug the printer to your home
NAT/router and use it from any computer behind the router. It also means
web-based configuration.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fw8ig1zt@mithlond.arda


PostScript sounds great guys but, how do I now if a printer is a
PostScript printer? Do you know of any brand that makes then?


It should say in the specs.  Many, maybe most, HP printers do.

--doug






--
Blessed are the peacekeepers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. 
--A.M. Greeley


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: http://lists.debian.org/500d8563.6060...@optonline.net

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread green

Stan Hoeppner wrote at 2012-07-23 06:59 -0500:
 On 7/23/2012 6:17 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:
  I suggest buying a PostScript printer with ethernet connection.
 
 LEXMARK E260dn, monochrome laser:

I purchased a Lexmark E360dn, hoping for good Linux support.  It prints 
nicely, but does not give a good experience with regard to paper type and 
tray selection.  The only problem, as far as I can tell, is that there is no 
correct PPD file: even the PPD provided by Lexmark is broken.  I tried 
writing one (PPDC), but did not have the time to learn the syntax, etc 
(remotely deployed printer).  With that fixed, I *think* it would work 
perfectly.

I do wish there were more hardware manufacturers with a real interest in 
making their products work well with Linux.  HP is the best I have seen:
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/recommended.html


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Ralf Mardorf

On Mon, 2012-07-23 at 14:30 -0500, green wrote:
 HP is the best I have seen:
 http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/recommended.html

I only can speak for an outdated DeskJet 600. For this kind of low
quality printer you can get very good prints, if you find the Gutenprint
driver, which can take some time. But it has a serious drawback, with
one ink cartridge you only can print a few pages. This might be
different for modern HP printers.

Regards,
Ralf




-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1343075281.3404.63.camel@precise

Re: Printers using free software only

2012-07-23 Thread Ralf Mardorf

PS:
On Mon, 2012-07-23 at 22:28 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 On Mon, 2012-07-23 at 14:30 -0500, green wrote:
  HP is the best I have seen:
  http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/recommended.html
 
 I only can speak for an outdated DeskJet 600. For this kind of low
 quality printer you can get very good prints, if you find the Gutenprint
the best
Gutenprint driver, not all for this printer are good
 driver, which can take some time. But it has a serious drawback, with
 one ink cartridge you only can print a few pages. This might be
 different for modern HP printers.
 
 Regards,
 Ralf
 
 




-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1343075366.3404.64.camel@precise

58 matches

Mail list logo