Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Ian Smith]

In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 386, Issue 9, Message: 5
On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 07:28:24 -0400 Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
  On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:03 -0500 (CDT)
  Robert Bonomi articulated:
  
   Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
   denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on
   the matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some
   degree held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist
   mind-set. You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_
   them.  snort
   
   BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
   product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the
   outside.
  
  Once again your argument is pathetic. Microsoft has been held legally
  responsible by laws written to curtail the robber barons (railroad 
  oil) of the 19 and early 20th century.) Of course the EC, or is that
  the USSREC, strongly backed (pushed) by Opera, a maker of a web browser
  so pathetic that in two years a new upstart, Chrome actually has a
  larger market share, led a fight to curtail Microsoft's market share.

Actually, it was to curtail modern-day robber barons destroying their 
competition by the usual raft of monopolistic and anti-competitive 
techniques, but let's roll on through your gloriously OTT troll ..

  This is Fascism at its best. A totally free and open market is the best
  way to insure the survival of the fittest. Of course socialists cannot
  survive in that environment and rush off to find ways of getting
  governments involved in protecting their turf.

Calling everyone who finds Microsoft's predatory behaviours 'socialist' 
(let alone 'fascist') and wrongly reducing to absurdity Darwin's theory 
to this primitive 'survival of the fittest' mantra is counterproductive 
to your usual function of participating in this list to sow bulk FUD on 
behalf of Microsoft.  If I were Bill, you'd get no $points for this one.

  I have absolutely no problem with holding Microsoft legally responsible
  when they release a product with a bug or security flaw. However, this
  must be enforced across the board and against every entity that
  releases software irregardless of its price. It should probably even
  include port maintainers who release defective ports. Lets be honest,
  if that is even possible for a socialist like yourself, that if you
  want to go down that road then lets go -- all the way.

Microsoft would love that.  They can pay fines out of the coffee and 
biscuit jar without blinking, while non-behemoths would be bankrupt.  
You would no doubt find this fair enough; survival of the fattest.

  Microsoft's very existence depends on its ability to create an
  operating system that allows users to fully use programming and devices
  that they choose to deploy. If they cannot achieve that goal then they
  die, or else have a market share equivalent to FreeBSD, virtually
  undetectable. Microsoft has done a fairly good job of that. FreeBSD,
  an the other non-windows operating systems, have not achieved that
  goal although a few forward thinking developers like those associated
  with Ubuntu have made huge strides in that direction.

You are mistaken if you think the raison d'etre of FreeBSD is, or ever 
has been, or ever will be, to achieve Microsoft's goals of a system so 
simple (albeit by obfuscation of complexity) that even a fool can use 
it, aimed at a mass consumer market.  You are wrong if you see FreeBSD, 
or the other BSDs, or other unix-based or unix-inspired systems (apart 
from Apple and a few more reactionary Linux advocates) as 'competing' in 
the same 'market' as Microsoft.

  When it comes to
  technological advances, FreeBSD is at the bottom of the list. It is
  there primarily because of people who are simply willing to accept
  inferiority as the norm.

Microsoft's list, for sure.  So transparent, Jerry.

  I know I piss people off by my style of
  writing. I am just not the sort of person, a socialist primarily, who
  bends over and takes it up the ass everyday rather than say ENOUGH,
  lets fix this friggin mess. You cannot even get a decent N - protocol
  wireless device, or even a not so decent one for that matter, to work
  on FreeBSD while the rest of the world has had working solutions for 5
  years. What the hell are they waiting for -- the second coming of the
  invisible man in the sky? Friggin PATHETIC. However, our esteemed
  leadership has managed to bump the version numbers from at least 6 to
  the soon to be 9 and we still have no working solution for an easy
  method of securing and installing printer drivers, or any drivers for
  that matter. Having to modify obscure system files and settings to get
  a simple sound card to work is always a PLUS. Pathetically enough, there
  are users who do actually feel that way.

Apart from yourself, for obvious reasons, people who want a system that 
works the One Microsoft Way and 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Frank Shute]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 07:28:24AM -0400, Jerry wrote:

 You cannot even get a decent N - protocol wireless device, or even
 a not so decent one for that matter, to work on FreeBSD while the
 rest of the world has had working solutions for 5 years. What the
 hell are they waiting for -- the second coming of the invisible man
 in the sky? Friggin PATHETIC. 

IEEE 802.11n-2009 was only published 2 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Timeline

Can we have enough of you whining about no n? Thanks.


Regards,

-- 

 Frank

 Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html




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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:25:11 +
Frank Shute articulated:

 On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 07:28:24AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
 
  You cannot even get a decent N - protocol wireless device, or even
  a not so decent one for that matter, to work on FreeBSD while the
  rest of the world has had working solutions for 5 years. What the
  hell are they waiting for -- the second coming of the invisible man
  in the sky? Friggin PATHETIC. 
 
 IEEE 802.11n-2009 was only published 2 years ago.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Timeline
 
 Can we have enough of you whining about no n? Thanks.

I was using the early draft 'N' protocol devices 5 years ago.
Obviously not in a FreeBSD environment. The time to start planning for
change is not when it slams you in the face, but rather anticipating it
and being prepared. There is no way any individual can claim that they
were not aware this was happening. Now, as you pointed out 
IEEE 802.11n-2009 was only published 2 years ago. So what is your
point --  that we should wait another 5 years before addressing the
problem? I am serious here; give me a time frame. Then post it on the
FreeBSD web site so potential users will be aware of this deficiency.
Or perhaps it is your belief that we should skip over this protocol
entirely and wait until the Q or whatever letter is designated
protocol is released. After all, it just stands to reason that at some
time in the future someone will devise a faster and/or more secure
method of wireless transmission.

The biggest loser in this is FreeBSD itself. Virtually any new PC or
laptop, with the exception of the bargain basement brands, and even
some of them are exempt, now come with N protocol wireless devices.
Any user who purchases one of these devices and plans on employing a
wireless network finds him/her self at a disadvantage. Their options
are to use a better OS, or buy and install a cheap G protocol device.
That is like buying a new car and slapping a ten year old motor in it.

I actually up to a few years ago had three FreeBSD machines hooked up
on my network not counting three separate laptops. I now only have one
machine because of the lack of suitable drivers. Once I get ambitious
this spring and rip out the last vestiges of hard wiring, that unit will
be gone too if drivers aren't available. Then I might try Ubuntu. Their
developers apparently do care about their user base.


-- 
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[C. P. Ghost]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
 The biggest loser in this is FreeBSD itself. Virtually any new PC or
 laptop, with the exception of the bargain basement brands, and even
 some of them are exempt, now come with N protocol wireless devices.

Instead of devoting so much time and energy whining about the
problem here on-list, even though you know full well that we can't
do anything about it for known reasons... why won't you lobby the
manufacturers of N devices, so that they either open their specs,
so we can write a driver, or at least release binary blobs compatible
with FreeBSD? Wouldn't that be more productive? You're very
outspoken on some aspects, so put that rhetorical skill to good use
and contact the major wireless chipset vendors; and then follow up
with them if you don't get the reply you want, just as you do here
on-list.

-cpghost.

-- 
Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:59:58 +0100
C. P. Ghost articulated:

 On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
  The biggest loser in this is FreeBSD itself. Virtually any new PC or
  laptop, with the exception of the bargain basement brands, and even
  some of them are exempt, now come with N protocol wireless
  devices.
 
 Instead of devoting so much time and energy whining about the
 problem here on-list, even though you know full well that we can't
 do anything about it for known reasons... why won't you lobby the
 manufacturers of N devices, so that they either open their specs,
 so we can write a driver, or at least release binary blobs compatible
 with FreeBSD? Wouldn't that be more productive? You're very
 outspoken on some aspects, so put that rhetorical skill to good use
 and contact the major wireless chipset vendors; and then follow up
 with them if you don't get the reply you want, just as you do here
 on-list.

Seriously, are you so naive that you believe that his is the only
venue I use to express my feeling on these matters? I have been
pestering several corporations for over two years now. I have even
spoken to several of their representatives, including a developer from
Brother recently in regards to making drivers easily available to
operating systems other than Microsoft, and usually a few flavors of
Linux. The contact I had at Brother was actually a Linux user himself.

In all cases, no matter what the device I was inquiring about was, the
standard answer was that they -- meaning the OEM -- could not see any
upside to investing in the development and maintenance of drivers for a
community as fragmented as the non-windows frontier. A few actually
told me to use Linux instead since they did offer some support for that
architecture. One company, I believe it was Cisco, told me that FreeBSD
does not support the system calls it needs to make its devices work
correctly. I am not a system engineer and since he was talking above my
head I just let it go. However, considering that nVidia had to wait
years for FreeBSD to mature enough for it to get its drivers functional
under this environment I can easily believe that there is more than a
grain of truth to the statement.

As for releasing technical details, etcetera, I was told point blank
that such information was confidential and would not be released. Now
that I can at least agree with. Unlike many socialists, I don't believe
in working my ass off, spending X amount of dollars and then just giving
my work away freely to every dirt bag to clone.

I write several major vendors on a monthly basic. Sometimes even using
different names so they might falsely believe that there is a larger
base than actually exists to request support. Now, suppose you were to
join me. Perhaps a few thousand other users, in other words all the
FreeBSD base, and wrote on a bi-weekly schedule to a targeted vendor
base requesting support. I will be happy to supply my own personal list
and compile other pertinent vendor's names  address's as well.

The only problem I see with this approach is maintaining continued group
support. The tendency of people to just give up and quite is self
evident. Now, as you might have noticed I don't suffer from that trait.
It is the primary difference between an Alpha male and one who just
bends over and takes it.

In any event Ghost, contact me if you want to help, just don't expect to
get any followers.


-- 
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jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 09:48:08 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:59:58 +0100
 C. P. Ghost articulated:
 
  On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
   The biggest loser in this is FreeBSD itself. Virtually any new PC or
   laptop, with the exception of the bargain basement brands, and even
   some of them are exempt, now come with N protocol wireless
   devices.
  
  Instead of devoting so much time and energy whining about the
  problem here on-list, even though you know full well that we can't
  do anything about it for known reasons... why won't you lobby the
  manufacturers of N devices, so that they either open their specs,
  so we can write a driver, or at least release binary blobs compatible
  with FreeBSD? Wouldn't that be more productive? You're very
  outspoken on some aspects, so put that rhetorical skill to good use
  and contact the major wireless chipset vendors; and then follow up
  with them if you don't get the reply you want, just as you do here
  on-list.
 
 Seriously, are you so naive that you believe that his is the only
 venue I use to express my feeling on these matters? I have been
 pestering several corporations for over two years now. I have even
 spoken to several of their representatives, including a developer from
 Brother recently in regards to making drivers easily available to
 operating systems other than Microsoft, and usually a few flavors of
 Linux. The contact I had at Brother was actually a Linux user himself.

Actually, Jerry has a point here. The N networking devices
have similarities with modern printers in this regards.
While developing compatible intelligency in the devices
itself is a cost factor of O(n), moving this intelligency
to software is O(1).

For those not familiar with my abuse of the O notation:

O(n) means linear: The more devices are produced, the more
chips need to be made. In case of printers, those chips
control paper feed and ink pee, as well as scanner,
imaging, local buffer storage, data transfer and so on.

O(1) means constant: Only one set of driver will have to
be developed, one for each Windows product line and
architecture that's intended to be supported. The whole
intelligence is in there, and data transfered to the
device will control it directly, maybe even unbuffered.

From a business point of view, investing O(1) in development
vs. getting O(n) revenue sounds very interesting.

What I said regarding printer devices seems to apply to
wireless networking too. The cheaper the better. There
is no intention of continued use in there, as this does
not benefit sales. If hardware could be re-used, what
reason would home consumers (main target area!) have
to buy something new that basically provides the same
functionality?

The more unit sales, the lower the price, and therefore
a wider-spread product spectrum. Of course, the downside
is that the possibilities of use are limited, but again,
that's what customers have been trained to require.



 One company, I believe it was Cisco, told me that FreeBSD
 does not support the system calls it needs to make its devices work
 correctly. I am not a system engineer and since he was talking above my
 head I just let it go.

It _may_ be possible that Cisco depends on Linuxisms
here, maybe things like *64() calls, like fstat64() vs. fstat().
I'm not a Cisco engineer, so this is just a very wild
guess. Doesn't have it may refer to advanced technology
as well as to legacy one.



 As for releasing technical details, etcetera, I was told point blank
 that such information was confidential and would not be released. Now
 that I can at least agree with.

Of course, it is their right to do so, will all the
implications. The confidentiality could also be a means
to hide the fact that devices come with planned
obsolescence or are intended to spy at users (such
as it is quite easily possible with Windows and
a webcam). Other reasons could be secret contracts
with companies or governments for a data exchange,
you're getting the idea. But as this cannot be proven
properly at the moment, just leave this point mentioned
as is.



 Unlike many socialists, I don't believe
 in working my ass off, spending X amount of dollars and then just giving
 my work away freely to every dirt bag to clone.

If this is not your attitude, well, fine, and fully
okay. However this is not everyones attitude as
some want to improve computers and operating systems
for free, as they see it a chance to do something FOR
the society.

The possibility to make money with tools provided
for free is a thing of licensing. You know that FreeBSD
allows its users to create own products with it, even
turn _them_ into something proprietary and then sell
them. This is a good idea from a CAPITALIST point of
view, i. e. take it for 0, sell it for $$$. And why
not? Because the licensing terms don't prohibit it.
This is also a chance for innovation, for individuals
finding their future on a free market.

If this way of 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Thomas Mueller]

  Then I have to portupgrade hplip and dependencies (portupgrade
  -r ...) or the portmaster equivalent.
 
 Welcome to the wonderful world of printing on FreeBSD. By the way, is
 the time you are investing in this venture considered billable hours or
 just self-flagellation?
 
 --
 Jerry ???
 jerry+f...@seibercom.net

This is not for any current employment (future?), so I guess it would be 
self-flagellation.

But I do want to try the Ethernet way, may need to buy an Ethernet switch or 
router.

I also intend to build a Linux installation, don't really want to be without 
that.

Linux has the best hardware and software support of any open-source OS; I don't 
think there is any argument about that: not to downgrade FreeBSD.

Tom

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:03 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

 Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
 denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on
 the matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some
 degree held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist
 mind-set. You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_
 them.  snort
 
 BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
 product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the
 outside.

Once again your argument is pathetic. Microsoft has been held legally
responsible by laws written to curtail the robber barons (railroad 
oil) of the 19 and early 20th century.) Of course the EC, or is that
the USSREC, strongly backed (pushed) by Opera, a maker of a web browser
so pathetic that in two years a new upstart, Chrome actually has a
larger market share, led a fight to curtail Microsoft's market share.
This is Fascism at its best. A totally free and open market is the best
way to insure the survival of the fittest. Of course socialists cannot
survive in that environment and rush off to find ways of getting
governments involved in protecting their turf.

I have absolutely no problem with holding Microsoft legally responsible
when they release a product with a bug or security flaw. However, this
must be enforced across the board and against every entity that
releases software irregardless of its price. It should probably even
include port maintainers who release defective ports. Lets be honest,
if that is even possible for a socialist like yourself, that if you
want to go down that road then lets go -- all the way.

Microsoft's very existence depends on its ability to create an
operating system that allows users to fully use programming and devices
that they choose to deploy. If they cannot achieve that goal then they
die, or else have a market share equivalent to FreeBSD, virtually
undetectable. Microsoft has done a fairly good job of that. FreeBSD,
an the other non-windows operating systems, have not achieved that
goal although a few forward thinking developers like those associated
with Ubuntu have made huge strides in that direction. When it comes to
technological advances, FreeBSD is at the bottom of the list. It is
there primarily because of people who are simply willing to accept
inferiority as the norm. I know I piss people off by my style of
writing. I am just not the sort of person, a socialist primarily, who
bends over and takes it up the ass everyday rather than say ENOUGH,
lets fix this friggin mess. You cannot even get a decent N - protocol
wireless device, or even a not so decent one for that matter, to work
on FreeBSD while the rest of the world has had working solutions for 5
years. What the hell are they waiting for -- the second coming of the
invisible man in the sky? Friggin PATHETIC. However, our esteemed
leadership has managed to bump the version numbers from at least 6 to
the soon to be 9 and we still have no working solution for an easy
method of securing and installing printer drivers, or any drivers for
that matter. Having to modify obscure system files and settings to get
a simple sound card to work is always a PLUS. Pathetically enough, there
are users who do actually feel that way.

Microsoft sells it products for money -- in some cases a lot of money.
FreeBSD and the open-source community as a whole (hole?) gives it away.
Yet Microsoft controls over 90% of the home market. That alone proves
my point. You cannot crate an inferior product and expect the general
population to use it simply because you give it away?

This discussion has gone on long enough and I am already bored by it.
There are some posters like Poly who, while I am aware of his deeply
rooted socialist concepts does actually raise some really useful ideas
and actually to some degree attempts to qualify them. At the very
least, he is willing to discuss them -- something extremely rare in
this arena. Then there are posters like Chad who simply spews the
company line -- Microsoft is bad, we are good, the corporations owe us,
bla bla bla. You cannot hold an intelligent conversation with them
because their mind is closed. I know that as would anyone who reads this
forum with an open mind. Then Robert, there is you. A perfect example
of a large majority of users here who would rather bend over every day
and smile as it is rammed up your ass rather than scream, ENOUGH ALL
READY -- LETS FIX THIS FRIGGIN MESS NOW!. You Robert are the reason
that FreeBSD and to a large extent other non-windows OSs are trailing
the pack. You have been brain washed to believe that inferiority is the
norm and to accept it. Like a good little socialist you have fallen in
line. The problem with that philosophy Robert is if you are not the lead
dog, the view never changes.

-- 
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jerry+f...@seibercom.net

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Warren Block]

While political and economic issues are important, most of them are not 
directly relevant to the freebsd-questions mailing list, and reduce the 
usefulness of the list in helping people get answers to questions about 
FreeBSD.


Please continue such subjects somewhere else, like private email or 
another mailing list.  http://xkcd.com/386/ might also be helpful.


Thanks!
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Robert Bonomi]

 From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sat Oct 29 06:29:33 2011
 Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 07:28:24 -0400
 From: Jerry je...@seibercom.net
 To: FreeBSD freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:03 -0500 (CDT)
 Robert Bonomi articulated:

  Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
  denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on
  the matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some
  degree held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist
  mind-set. You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_
  them.  snort
  
  BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
  product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the
  outside.

 Once again your argument is pathetic.

What argument is that?   That you are trying to impose _your_ standards on
on the world?  That you would deny people the freedom to make up their
own minds about whether they want vendor liability, versus accepting that
risk for themselves?

 This discussion has gone on long enough and I am already bored by it.

[drivelectomy -- ad hominems, and fact-free ranting removed]

Poor ignorant, ill-informed, Jerry.  The fool doesn't know that there *is*
an existing, absolutely 'standard -- meaning 'totally uniform across all 
versions of Unix, *AND* Unix look-alikes -- that is available to every 
printer vendor.

Any printer manufacturer that so desires _can_ produce a *SINGLE* program 
source that will allow a 'host based' printer to work on _any_ Unix (or
look-alike) platform.  That program can be distributed as a single 'platform-
independant' file, using any (platform independant) 'interpreted' language OF 
THEIR CHOICE -- e.g.Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, or anything similar -- or as 
a 'native' executable (although that would probably require compiling and 
linking on each environment) for optimum performance/efficiency.

The entire specifications that this program must be written to are about
eight lines long.

Installation/use directions are even shorter:
   Put the file 'somewhere convenient' in the  file system.
   Make sure it is marke 'executable' by all -- i.e. 'chmod a+x'
   Place the complete pathname of the installed file as the 'if' paramter
in the '/etc/printcap' entry for the printer queue(s) for this printer,
and set the 'lp' paramter to the name of the  I/O port to which it is
attached.

Writing to -this- standard is a _lot_ of work.  And it *is* understandable
that very few printer manufacturers have done so.  It is worth noting,
though, that printer manufacturers _have_ done it.  Lexmark did it for an
early color ink-jet (the ZX-80), providing a SunOS host-based executable
that provided, self-contained in the executable,  a full Color PostScript 
Level 3 'driver' for that printer.

A _far_simpler_ approach -- which *still* meets the requirements of 'not
disclosing anything proprietary', and writing _one_ driver that works on
all Unix systems -- is to write a 'device-driver' module for GhostScript.
The _single_ source-code does have to be compiled for each supported
CPU architecture,  There is a theoretical 'worst case' of needing to
produce as many as three object files ('a.out', ELF, and COFF format)
for a given CPU architecture.

I don't expect this to convince the frothing loon of anything.  But it
should demonstrate that his screaming screeds are not based in fact.


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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:


In message alpine.bsf.2.00.1110270834540.94...@wonkity.com,
Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:


...

The only thing that worries me about my rather ad-hoc way of setting up
a personal printer (as describe above) is that I sort of wonder what
will happen if I ever try to print something when something else is
currently printing.


There's also the issue of printing large files, which will tie up the
command line until the printer has buffered them all...


Tie up the command line ??

John Levine attempted to make the same point, and I'm still not really getting
it.  This is why we have X!  I can have all of the command lines that I want,
and I frequently do.  I have at least 15 different xterm windows open as we
speak, so I really don't see tying up the command line as a real issue.


A better example would be a web browser or word processor.  The program 
stops responding to further input until the printer has received the 
entire print job.  This bothered people enough that they came up with 
lpd/lpr, which is part of the base FreeBSD system and works well.  It's 
been around long enough for problems to have been worked out.

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Thomas Mueller]

from Mark Felder f...@feld.me:

 You've just made me a happy, happy user. I always wondered what it would  
 take to get rid of CUPS, and today I've done it. Finally my print jobs are  
 instantaneous here at work instead of being a mystery. Can't wait to go  
 home and do the same with my personal laser.

I wish I could do that with my HP n1212mf LaserJet, but the necessary hplip 
port depends on cups-base.

I could not get that printer to work on the old computer under FreeBSD 8.2 and 
NetBSD 5.1_STABLE,
problems with the tricky USB interface, won't work with ulpt, but I didn't try 
the ethernet way yet.

On the new computer, FreeBSD being the only hard-drive OS installed so far, I 
built hplip but haven't
tested it yet.  Upgrading by source from FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2 to RC1, I was sure 
to deactivate ulpt in
the kernel config file.  I am still struggling with some files in /etc messed 
up by mergemaster.  I
may have found a solution but haven't tested it yet; I did back up my old /etc 
directory.

Then I have to portupgrade hplip and dependencies (portupgrade -r ...) or the 
portmaster equivalent.

Tom

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:08:07 + (GMT)
Thomas Mueller articulated:

 from Mark Felder f...@feld.me:
 
  You've just made me a happy, happy user. I always wondered what it
  would take to get rid of CUPS, and today I've done it. Finally my
  print jobs are instantaneous here at work instead of being a
  mystery. Can't wait to go home and do the same with my personal
  laser.
 
 I wish I could do that with my HP n1212mf LaserJet, but the necessary
 hplip port depends on cups-base.
 
 I could not get that printer to work on the old computer under
 FreeBSD 8.2 and NetBSD 5.1_STABLE, problems with the tricky USB
 interface, won't work with ulpt, but I didn't try the ethernet way
 yet.
 
 On the new computer, FreeBSD being the only hard-drive OS installed
 so far, I built hplip but haven't tested it yet.  Upgrading by source
 from FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2 to RC1, I was sure to deactivate ulpt in the
 kernel config file.  I am still struggling with some files in /etc
 messed up by mergemaster.  I may have found a solution but haven't
 tested it yet; I did back up my old /etc directory.
 
 Then I have to portupgrade hplip and dependencies (portupgrade
 -r ...) or the portmaster equivalent.

Welcome to the wonderful world of printing on FreeBSD. By the way, is
the time you are investing in this venture considered billable hours or
just self-flagellation?

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:09:05 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

  From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Thu Oct 27 16:46:51 2011
  Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:46:21 -0400
  From: Jerry je...@seibercom.net
  To: FreeBSD freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
  Subject: Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS
 
  On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200
  Polytropon articulated:
 
   On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.
   
The *nix community has never
gotten printing up to that lever.
   
   It _had_, past tense. :-)
   
While there are those who continually
blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or
any other alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously
proposed the creation of a department dedicated to the writing
of drivers for non-windows based systems, a department that
would therefore have a zero based projected cash flow, would be
removed from office posthaste.
   
   Fully agree, but if established standards would have
   been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
   products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
   One standard interface could address all printer
   functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
   or faxing functionalities quite common in the egg-laying
   wool-milk-sows we see on the consumer markets.
 
  First of all let me say that I love standards; there are so many of
  them to choose from.
 
  Secondly, I seriously hope that never comes to pass. Once you lock
  yourself into one specific interface the ability to innovate has
  been removed. I cannot think of a worse possible scenario.
 
 There's no real need for a 'standard' for communication with dumb
 raster devices, which is what most 'winprinters' are.  
 
 All that is needed is a _published_ specification such that others
 can implement communications with that device.
 
 And there isn't a whole lot to such a specification:
   How start-of-page is marked
   How start-of-line is marked
   How end-of-line is marked
   How end-of-page is marked
   How pixels are represented
   Pixels per raster line,
   Raster lines per page,
   How the bits are sequenced
   The compression methodology, if any, used.
 
 there is little reason _not_ to make such specification public.
 
   Sadly, the one standard doesn't seem to exist, and
   manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
   such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
   OS could implement it.
 
  There you go putting restriction on how such an standard should be
  implemented. I have a better idea. Why doesn't the *nix/*BSD {pick
  any other letter combination that turns you on} agree to one
  uniform method of implementing printer drivers and then let the
  manufacturers implement it on their end.
 
 You argued cogently _against_ manufacturers using standards.
 Now you argue in favor of the entire *nix commnity agreeing on one.
 
 Somehow, the phrase double standard' springs to mind.  grin

I argued against any standard that strangles the ability to innovate.
Certain standards such as port 25 for SMTP are a necessary evil.
There are other examples.

Microsoft, since Win95 has had a simple method for the installation of
programs and drivers into it system. A program that is attempting to
install itself into the system calls msi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer and supplies the needed
data to that application. MSI then takes over and installs the
application/driver. This allows developers to worry about creating
their applications or drivers without the headache of actually
installing them.

Now, if the *BSD and other non-windows platform had a similar
application, one that ran EXACTLY THE SAME on each different platform,
developers would have a far easier task designing drivers for a wide
target audience instead of having to custom design each driver to
each individual platform which sometimes changes drastically between
major version numbers.

 I have spoke to two company reps in the
  past year, one regarding printers, and both stated outright that the
  thought of writing and maintaining drivers on a multitude of
  platforms scares them to death. The problem is not with the
  manufacturers but rather with the fragmentation of the non-windows
  arena.
 
 There is -no- need for *them* to actually write drivers for use in 
 'specialty'/'niche' markets. 
 
 *ALL* they have to do is release the 'specifications' for the
 communications format and protocol that the device uses.

Obviously you do not understand the term proprietary as it refers to
proprietary design or proprietary goods.

Honestly, where do you socialists come off with the doctrine that
others should work their asses off developing a product and then
divulge that knowledge to you free of charge thus costing the developer
a fair return on his/her investment?

In any case, even IF the needed code were disclosed

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Daniel Feenberg]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011, Mark Felder wrote:

You've just made me a happy, happy user. I always wondered what it would 
take to get rid of CUPS, and today I've done it. Finally my print jobs 
are instantaneous here at work instead of being a mystery. Can't wait to 
go home and do the same with my personal laser.


Has anyone here experience with PDQ? It is a printing system that appears 
to address the problems cited in this thread.


  http://pdq.sourceforge.net/

Quoting from the website:

  Most casual unix users regard lp and lpr as
  black holes to which print jobs disappear,
  and may or may not emerge.

I haven't tried it, as we have been able to make CUPS work (barely), but I 
am sympathetic to the sentiments expressed. Other than Windows-specific 
printers, FreeBSD printing problems are home-grown, and not caused by 
vendor misbehavior.


Daniel Feenberg
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011, Daniel Feenberg wrote:


On Thu, 27 Oct 2011, Mark Felder wrote:

You've just made me a happy, happy user. I always wondered what it would 
take to get rid of CUPS, and today I've done it. Finally my print jobs are 
instantaneous here at work instead of being a mystery. Can't wait to go 
home and do the same with my personal laser.


Has anyone here experience with PDQ? It is a printing system that appears to 
address the problems cited in this thread.


 http://pdq.sourceforge.net/

Quoting from the website:

 Most casual unix users regard lp and lpr as
 black holes to which print jobs disappear,
 and may or may not emerge.


The arguments seem weak to me, and it sounds like a reinvention of lpd. 
It's unfortunate that many people see CUPS as the default choice.

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:53:44 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote:
 A better example would be a web browser or word processor.  The program 
 stops responding to further input until the printer has received the 
 entire print job.  This bothered people enough that they came up with 
 lpd/lpr, which is part of the base FreeBSD system and works well.  It's 
 been around long enough for problems to have been worked out.

Furthermore, this system's mechanism allows the
use of user plugins, i. e. custom printer filters
that talk to the device directly. This means that
as soon as the printer spooler has received the
data from the application program, any delays just
happen to the processing and transmitting job (to
the printer), not to the originating program.

For example, I've written a simple search  replace
filter to send data directly to the parallel port
where a daisywheel printer is attached. It's easy
to combine this with the system's tools lpr / lpd /
lpq / lprm, in combination with the /etc/printcap file
and a shell script.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 06:36:20 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 Welcome to the wonderful world of printing on FreeBSD. By the way, is
 the time you are investing in this venture considered billable hours or
 just self-flagellation?

Maybe you can also ask the other way round:

BEFORE I buy a product, I ask: Does this product offer
compatibility with my OS? Does it support my system?

I'm doing so for some years now intendedly, and I spend
less money and have less trouble, still I can use the
optimal hardware + software combination for the jobs I
need them for.

Of course, only very few professionals do use this
approach, and they are a minority. They are not part
of the target audience of manufacturers as they get
the most revenue from the home consumer markets;
regarding the advanced users, they _rightfully_
say: We don't care, as it doesn't pay.

This is a simple logic of the market.

Regarding standards: If products are somehow compatible
with something that's already established and supported,
the the questions at the beginning can be answered with
YES, leading to a unit sale.

I think this is meant by voting with my wallet, right?

Product doesn't work for me - no sale.

But as I initially said: Majorities decide in market
regards. Those majorities are grown by advertising,
which means that their needs are first created, then
formed, and finally satisfied. See Jevons paradox
in relation to modern products again.



On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 06:59:16 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 I argued against any standard that strangles the ability to innovate.

And I fully agree with that. ANY concept that is intended
to limit the possibilities and the evolution of a product
(hardware or software) is bad, as it limits freedom, as
well as a natural flow of a free market.



 Certain standards such as port 25 for SMTP are a necessary evil.
 There are other examples.

Yes.



 Microsoft, since Win95 has had a simple method for the installation of
 programs and drivers into it system. A program that is attempting to
 install itself into the system calls msi
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer and supplies the needed
 data to that application. MSI then takes over and installs the
 application/driver. This allows developers to worry about creating
 their applications or drivers without the headache of actually
 installing them.

Ha! Very funny. :-)

Most software suppliers do use their own installers, just
as they use own GUIs (for inconsistency). I know that the
MSI mechanism exists for many years, but developers seem
to already have no big intention to use it. Windows does
not have a concept of centrally managed software search,
instalaltion, auditing, upgrading and deinstallation, so
this fits the picture well.

Also malware, spyware and all the fun you have in Windows
land bypasses such means to improve installation habits.
This is because users have developed a certain way of
how they get programs onto their PCs: First they open
a web browser and google for it, then they download
some *.EXE file and execute it, go through a wizard,
next, next, next, wait, and reboot. This method also
applies to drivers. Just look at what manufacturers
put onto their installation CDs (or DVDs today), or
how they encourage the users to download the stuff
from the web. Program cycling (like upgrades) are
typically done by each program on its own, individually.

Again, marketing concepts apply here: Many software
vendors regard the installer as part of their product,
as a viewing window needed to have advertising
purposes. Things such as company logos, entertainment
elements, registration and other things therefore are
claimed to _have to_ come in the installer.

Oh, and I think you're wrong regarding the year: The
MSI system, if I remember correctly, became available
in the product Windows 2000. The installer itself
depends on the PRESENCE of the proper infrastructure,
and there are various incompatible versions across
the many kinds of Windows, and you cannot install
every MSI version on any arbitrary Windows. This
has to be made sure _before_ attempting to install
anything that uses the MSI mechanism!

The MSI intrastructure is also not freely documented,
so it's not fully possible to employ it without further
burdens. It's also Windows centric and cannot be
used on other systems. And in the future, it's quite
possible that certification will be added in order to
control _what_ can be installed on a Windows PC and
what cannot. And licensing also comes into mind, where
coworkers of MICROS~1 are treated as 1st class
cititens, whereas competitors would have to buy a
license to use this approach. The actual programs to
create MSI packages also have to be considered: Are
they expensive, in comparison to the free and powerful
tools known in the Linux and BSD world?

Again, politics enter the field.

And then there's the security consideration. MSI as a
black box prohibits the proper inspection of its
content before it's too late (unlike the packaging

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:12:54 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 So let me make this more clear: IF the hardware manufacturer
 wants to allow developers to write drivers for their hardware
 for free, THEN everything they'd have to do is to publish the
 control codes for the sheet feeder and the ink pee motors.
 Conclusion: If they don't do it, they don't want developers
 to do so. It is their RIGHT, because they own the product,
 and they may sell it under any circumstances they think will
 lead to profit. Market rules again.

I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where you
entire argument breaks down.

Assume Big Corporation creates a new printer known as Printer-101 and
releases its code for any moron, sorry I meant expert to use to write
OS specific drivers for.

Now lets assume a user/developer/hobbyist (pick one, any one) decides
to write a driver for said Printer-101 and it is adapted by some
unnamed OS. Lets name the driver writer Poly. Now users buy this
printer for this specific OS because they were told that a suitable
driver existed for it on said platform. So far so good. Now comes the
fun part.

The printers output sucks. There are numerous system lockups and other
really bad things happening. The manufacturer, Big Corporation finds
its sales of Printer-101 sinking faster than the Titanic. After a
lengthy investigation it is found that the printer is sound and the
codes supplied were correct. The problem is with the horrific driver
written by Poly.

Now tell me, should Poly be held financially responsible for this
abomination? The odds are that Poly will be hiding off in a basement
somewhere unreachable.

We haven't even touched on what happens if Big Corporation finds a
glitch with the printer and needs a modification in its firmware and
modifications to Poly's driver script. Who supplies them and what
happens when Poly disappears?

Check out MOVED in the ports. There are numerous applications that
are just abandoned or discontinued. If something breaks I want someone
to contact. I realize that is not the Open Source way however. The
thought of someone actually being responsible is rare indeed.

I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop. My
drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the local
pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those best able to
supply them, the OEM.

As stated in another post, if a suitable platform were created for
manufacturers to distribute their drivers, whether it be printers,
modems, wireless devices, etcetera, the problem would be solved. Of
course it is easier for all the non-windows based OSs to have a pissing
contest rather than create a unified front so I am confident that the
prospect of that occurring in my life time are nil.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Chuck Swiger]

On Oct 28, 2011, at 1:04 PM, Jerry wrote:
 Check out MOVED in the ports. There are numerous applications that
 are just abandoned or discontinued. If something breaks I want someone
 to contact. I realize that is not the Open Source way however. The
 thought of someone actually being responsible is rare indeed.

When you use Open Source software, _you_ are responsible for it, and not the 
author(s) to the extent that such responsibility can legally be disclaimed.

See the Disclaimer in all-caps here, for example:

  http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html

Don't like it?  Feel free to use something else, or feel free to pay for a 
level of support that suits you.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:14:26 -0700
Chuck Swiger articulated:

 On Oct 28, 2011, at 1:04 PM, Jerry wrote:
  Check out MOVED in the ports. There are numerous applications that
  are just abandoned or discontinued. If something breaks I want
  someone to contact. I realize that is not the Open Source way
  however. The thought of someone actually being responsible is rare
  indeed.
 
 When you use Open Source software, _you_ are responsible for it, and
 not the author(s) to the extent that such responsibility can legally
 be disclaimed.

Which is exactly what I stated.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:04:19 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:12:54 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:
 
  So let me make this more clear: IF the hardware manufacturer
  wants to allow developers to write drivers for their hardware
  for free, THEN everything they'd have to do is to publish the
  control codes for the sheet feeder and the ink pee motors.
  Conclusion: If they don't do it, they don't want developers
  to do so. It is their RIGHT, because they own the product,
  and they may sell it under any circumstances they think will
  lead to profit. Market rules again.
 
 I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where you
 entire argument breaks down.
 
 Assume Big Corporation creates a new printer known as Printer-101 and
 releases its code for any moron, sorry I meant expert to use to write
 OS specific drivers for.
 [...]
 We haven't even touched on what happens if Big Corporation finds a
 glitch with the printer and needs a modification in its firmware and
 modifications to Poly's driver script. Who supplies them and what
 happens when Poly disappears?

Valid point, haven't thought about that yet. The
implications are interesting...

It does not invalidate my argumentation, but it is
worth being considered. Bad advertising could be
considered a downside in unit sales, such as it
happens with GPU vendors whose cards to not work
properly on Linux -- they won't get recommended
for use, instead a competitor will make the sale.
But the manufacturers can create that effect theirselves
by releasing crappy drivers. Due to the short life
of hardware, they don't seem to consider drivers
an essential part of their product, as it does
break next year anyway, an attitude fully matching
the current state of the art, the throwaway society.
That's why driver support is often designed towards
(and limited to!) a specific kind of Windows (as
they make the main target audience, the majority,
the biggest slice of market share).

Fully understandable from a corporate point of view.
Shortsighted in many cases maybe, but understandable.

Why invest time (and therefore, money) in developing
Linux drivers when the product will be withdrawn in
the next year anyway, and the amount of Linux users
going to buy the product are nearly zero, so the
revenue will be quite small, and in _no_ relation
to the investition of developing drivers.

Take USB hard disks for example. As manufacturers
have decided to use _one_ plug, as well as _one_
command set, I can virtually buy any external hard
disk without worrying about compatibility, and I
don't need any company to develop a driver for
that disk for the OS I'm using.

I wish this could be the default situation with
any device, be it a media player, printer+scanner,
USB toy or anything else. A standard that gives
a broad interface with _all_ options available
so the manufacturer can invent any extraordinary
functionality he wants, depending on that tool-
set. Basically, that's what their current drivers
do: They take a limited set of commands (in some
programming language, assembler, C, whatever is
currently considere modern in Windows, who knows)
and implements the functionality with this _closed_
set of tools, creating something new. Why not do
that with a toolset that's available anywhere, and
that can be ported to any new platform? Without
paying license fees and handing them over to
customers, hoping on the good will of possible
competitors who hold the licensing rights so
they won't destroy the product, and maybe the
whole manufacturing company?

The big chance: The Yes, it also works on ...
could increase unit sales, and the perspective for
the future would be good: Without developing sets
of new drivers (for different kinds of Windows
on different architectures, {m,n}-matrix) they
could state that their product will also work with
future devices. Interoperability, maybe this will
also be more important in the future?

A unified structure that gets PROPERLY (!) implemented
on different platforms could be the solution. It
would not limit inventions or further development.



 Check out MOVED in the ports. There are numerous applications that
 are just abandoned or discontinued. If something breaks I want someone
 to contact. I realize that is not the Open Source way however. The
 thought of someone actually being responsible is rare indeed.

There are companies offering support for payment, while
the product they are using and promoting basically is
free of charge. Maybe such a model could be adopted in
such cases?



 I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop. My
 drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the local
 pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those best able to
 supply them, the OEM.

This is what you _need_ to rely on as long as you cannot
validate the products yourself. In many cases, you need
very precide knowledge, maybe technology and tools, to
be sure. This is _knowing_. By 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Robert Bonomi]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:04:19 -0400, Jerry je...@seibercom.net pontificated:

 I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop. My
 drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the local
 pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those best able to
 supply them, the OEM.

I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where you(sic)
 entire argument breaks down.

That attitude is entirely acceptable for _your_ decision making.
Asserting that nobody else shoul have any other alternatives to what
you think is 'acceptable' is downright fascist.


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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:35:20 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

 
 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:04:19 -0400, Jerry je...@seibercom.net
 pontificated:
 
  I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop.
  My drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the
  local pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those
  best able to supply them, the OEM.
 
 I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where
 you(sic) entire argument breaks down.
 
 That attitude is entirely acceptable for _your_ decision making.
 Asserting that nobody else shoul(sic) have any other alternatives to
 what you think is 'acceptable' is downright fascist.

Who, or is it whom you choose to be your supplier is entirely a
decision you have to make based on your needs and desires. My point is
that anyone offering such products should be to some degree held
legally responsible to their worth. A Fly by Night operation is
totally unacceptable to me. If you find it acceptable then so be it.
Remember the adage: You get what you pay for.

By the way, calling me a Fascist when a significant number of users
of Open Source are socialist is rather funny.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:17:46 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

 P.S. If _anybody_ wants to accuse me of 'name-calling', note well
 that Jerry started it, and without any provocation.

Mommy.mommy, come quick. The boy next door is picking on me.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:54:01 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 Remember the adage: You get what you pay for.

That's often true - especially in the home consumer
market you mostly get crap, this is what you pay for.

But in some cases, you can't control _what_ you get
just per payment, means: Just because it's more
expensive does NOT mean it's better than the cheaper
competitor product.

Money is not the selective means here. Knowledge is.
Gaining that knowledge is an investment of time that
traditionally pays in the end. Some have to learn that
the hard way.



 By the way, calling me a Fascist when a significant number of users
 of Open Source are socialist is rather funny.

Can you show me some evidences that proof that a
significant number of users of Open Source are socialist
please? Or may I simply dismiss this statement as
a claim with _no_ backup?

Really man... I'd like to know where you got THAT
stupid idea from...

Because I think it is wrong. Do you call big companies
and small businesses socialist because they employ,
let's say Linux, as the basis of their business, which
is to make money... would you call them socialist?
I'd say they're capitalist, as they're acting on a
free market where they _choose_ the best product for
a particular job, and the fact that this product can
be purchased for free does not turn the business into
a giveaway charity club!

So using open source products (or let's generalize:
free software) is often the _better_ solution for a
capitalist (that's anyone who doesn't want to give
money away for crap, as it doesn't pay!), because
it maximizes revenue when you have to spend less
money on software that doesn't do the job.

Remember: it's ALWAYS about a particular job getting
done, a requirement or a need that selects _which_
software gets purchased -- for $$$ or for 0.

That has NOTHING do do with socialism. Please try to
consolidate your terminology.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Robert Bonomi]

On  Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:54:01 -0400 Jerry je...@seibercom.net supersciliously
ponftificated:

 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:35:20 -0500 (CDT)
 Robert Bonomi articulated:

  
  On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:04:19 -0400, Jerry je...@seibercom.net
  pontificated:
  
   I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop.
   My drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the
   local pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those
   best able to supply them, the OEM.
  
  I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where
  you(sic) entire argument breaks down.
  
  That attitude is entirely acceptable for _your_ decision making.
  Asserting that nobody else shoul(sic) have any other alternatives to
  what you think is 'acceptable' is downright fascist.

 Who, or is it whom you choose to be your supplier is entirely a
 decision you have to make based on your needs and desires. My point is
 that anyone offering such products should be to some degree held
 legally responsible to their worth.

Of course, _every_ piece of freeware comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
If you don't like it, for _any_reason_whatsoever_, your money will be 
immediately refunded, in full.  You don't even have to return the (in your 
view) defective, product -- or even stop using it.

 A Fly by Night operation is
 totally unacceptable to me. If you find it acceptable then so be it.
 Remember the adage: You get what you pay for.

 By the way, calling me a Fascist when a significant number of users
 of Open Source are socialist is rather funny.

What 'some others' are, and what _you_ are, are unrelated subjects.

Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on the
matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some degree 
held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist mind-set.
You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_ them.  snort

BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the outside.
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Christopher J. Ruwe]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:54:01 -0400
Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:

 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:35:20 -0500 (CDT)
 Robert Bonomi articulated:
 
  
  On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:04:19 -0400, Jerry je...@seibercom.net
  pontificated:
  
   I buy my cars from known corporations and not the local chop-shop.
   My drugs come form known pharmaceutical corporations and not the
   local pusher. I like my device specific codes to come from those
   best able to supply them, the OEM.
  
  I am just going to reply to this one point because it is where
  you(sic) entire argument breaks down.
  
  That attitude is entirely acceptable for _your_ decision making.
  Asserting that nobody else shoul(sic) have any other alternatives to
  what you think is 'acceptable' is downright fascist.
 
 Who, or is it whom you choose to be your supplier is entirely a
 decision you have to make based on your needs and desires. My point is
 that anyone offering such products should be to some degree held
 legally responsible to their worth. A Fly by Night operation is
 totally unacceptable to me. If you find it acceptable then so be it.
 Remember the adage: You get what you pay for.
 
 By the way, calling me a Fascist when a significant number of users
 of Open Source are socialist is rather funny.
 

From a point of view a political sciences theorist might assume, fascism and 
socialism are not that far apart. Both need to abolish individual liberties 
quite soon. Which is what you seem to claim ... abolish the right of the 
individual to make contracts based on his/her terms.

BTW, I do not believe that many open source users would accept a
serious decline of their civil and legal liberty. So I do not believe
many are really more than cherry-picking socialists, even if calling
oneself socialist is somehow en vogue. We could debate anarchism,
though, ... ;-)

-- 
Christopher J. Ruwe
TZ GMT + 2

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:03 -0500 (CDT), Robert Bonomi wrote:
 Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
 denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on the
 matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some degree 
 held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist mind-set.
 You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_ them.  snort

There is a market for those who don't want to think
before buying, who just want to buy, who want to be
told what's the right way. In a free society, it's
also a freedom to give up the individual choice, as
strange as it sounds. By spending more money, customers
are able to buy theirselves free from doubt and
fear. I admit that this attitude shares aspects of
a typical belief or even religion. This concept runs
the thing we currently call the self-controlling market.



 BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
 product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the outside.

Would benefiting a healthy and free market, which
means real capitalism (not the stage show we're
experiencing today). :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[perryh]

Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:

 A better example would be a web browser or word processor.  The
 program stops responding to further input until the printer has
 received the entire print job.  This bothered people enough that
 they came up with lpd/lpr ...

Back when lpr/lpd were first written, it was not just a matter of
the printer receiving the entire print job but of (nearly) the
entire job being completely printed.  Few printers had more than a
one-line buffer in those days.  There was also the matter of sharing
the printer among a considerable number of concurrent users, those
being the days of multiuser PDP-11's and VAXen.

BTW there was nothing particularly innovative about lpr/lpd --
mainframes like IBM 360's and even 7090's had been using print
spoolers for years.
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Robert Bonomi]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:44:59 +0200, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote

 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:03 -0500 (CDT), Robert Bonomi wrote:
  Your insistance on trying to impose -your- standards on the world, and
  denying them the 'freedom of choice' to make their own decisions on the
  matter -- e.g. anyone offering such products should be to some degree 
  held legally responsible to their worth -- is a fascist mind-set.
  You 'know better' than anybody else, what is 'right' _for_ them.  snort

 There is a market for those who don't want to think
 before buying, who just want to buy, who want to be
 told what's the right way. In a free society, it's
 also a freedom to give up the individual choice, as
 strange as it sounds.

Yup.  No argument -- idiots are free to do as they chose.

I, however, object -- *most*strenuously* -- when those self-same fascist 
idiots try to force -their- determination of what is 'right' on me.

  BTW, I'd _love_ to see Microsoft held legally respnsible for _their_
  product shortcomings.  They'd be out of business in a week at the outside.

 Would benefiting a healthy and free market, which
 means real capitalism (not the stage show we're
 experiencing today). :-)


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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Randy Pratt]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:28:30 -0700
Ronald F. Guilmette r...@tristatelogic.com wrote:

 
 
 This isn't really a question.  It's more of a semi-rant, combined with some
 information that I wanted to put on the record (so that it can be googled)
 because it may benefit some folks, other than just me.
 
 I'm impatient by nature, and I don't like CUPS.  (I would say that I hate
 it, but I don't actually feel that strongly.)
 
 I have two personal workstations.  When I say personal I mean it.  I'm
 the only one who ever touches them.

I think I have over 50 ports depending on CUPS in one way or another..
but I've never configured or knowingly used CUPS.

The easiest way I've found for printing is ports/print/apsfilter.  It
seems to support a lot of printers and has a configuration script that
generates the /etc/printcap file.  There is a guide at

http://www.freebsddiary.org/apsfilter.php

Take a look at http://www.apsfilter.org/ for detailed information.

Randy
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Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

This isn't really a question.  It's more of a semi-rant, combined with some
information that I wanted to put on the record (so that it can be googled)
because it may benefit some folks, other than just me.

I'm impatient by nature, and I don't like CUPS.  (I would say that I hate
it, but I don't actually feel that strongly.)

I have two personal workstations.  When I say personal I mean it.  I'm
the only one who ever touches them.

One of them I have been bringing back up recently after a long hiatus,
and I've just installed 8.2-RELEASE/amd64 on it.

One of the first things I found I needed to do with it, after installing
the OS and a bunch of my favorite ports  packages was to set it up for
printing to a crusty/trusty old workhorse... an HP Laserjet 3015.  (This
printer can print both plain text and Postscript, but if I just send
it plain text the output doesn't really suit me, so I've made it prettier.
See below.)

Because I've never used 8.2 before... or even any 8.x release, I naturally
went into the Handbook and looked for _current_ guidance on setting up
printers.  Most of that information was quite helpful, right up to the point
where it started discussing CUPS.

The bottom line is that CUPS is sophisticated, which is to say complex and
convoluted.  If you are impatient, then setting up CUPS properly is both
tedious and time consuming.  Of course, it _is_ essential that you properly
set up CUPS if you are setting up a _server_ that multiple people will use,
but for a personal workstation, the entire queueing structure is just overkill,
in my opinion.

More importantly, CUPS, for me at least, seems to be quite slow.  There's a
lng pause after I queue something for printing until something actually
comes out of the printer.  Maybe that's my fault, e.g. because I didn't con-
figure CUPS correctly, and maybe it isn't.  I don't know, and actually, I
don't want to know, because I found a way to nicely print stuff that just
bypasses CUPS entirely.  And it works for me, so I am a happy camper.

I just wanted to share what I did.

In a nutshell, I moved/renamed /usr/bin/lpr to /usr/bin/lpr- and replaced
it with this trivial script:


#!/bin/sh

printer='/dev/ulpt0'

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
  cat | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
else
  for arg in $* ; do
cat $arg | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
  done
fi


My Laserjet 3015 used to be hooked up via a good old fashioned bulky centronix
parallel cable, but I thought that I ought to finally get myself into this
century, so I got a new USB 2.0 cable for it just the other day, and now it's
name is /dev/ulpt0 rather than /dev/lpt0 as before.

As you can see, the script above just takes whatever filnames are given on
the cmmand line and cats them one-by-one through psif and then the output
from that gets sent straight to /dev/ulpt0.

One little snag though... as I found out, it doesn't matter if you try to
set the SUID bit on this script and make it owned by root.  Nowadays shell
scripts simply do not do SUID anymore.  The only reason that's even signifi-
cant is that you'll probably want to be able to print while logged in as
any old user, and in order to make that work with this scheme, you have to do:

   chmod 0666 /dev/ulpt0

so that any user can write to the printer device file.

I only fiddled a couple of other small things in order to make this all work.
Firstly, I created my own versions of /usr/local/libexec/psif-text and also
/usr/local/libexec/psif-ps.  Here they are:

/usr/local/libexec/psif-text:
=
#! /bin/sh

/usr/local/bin/textps -c 10 -l 60 -m 38 -t 46  printf \004  exit 0
=

/usr/local/libexec/psif-ps:
=
#! /bin/sh

/bin/cat  printf \004  exit 0
=

The parameters for textps that I have in my psif-text file were just some
parameters that I slapped together after running a few tests to see what
values created output that looked good to me.  Your milage may vary.

After I set up all of the above stuff, I noticed that my attempts to use the
lpr command to print things from non-root user accounts was still resulting
in very long delays before anything would print.  It took me some head scratch-
ing but I finally found the problem.  In a nutshell, the problems was that
at one point while I was trying to get this all going, I did in fact install
the CUPS package (and friends).  As I learned, when you do this you get the
following _different_ version of lpr installed in a place where normal user
accounts are likely to see it in their $PATH first:

   /usr/local/bin/lpr

Yikes!  So we've got 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Bill Tillman]

From: Ronald F. Guilmette r...@tristatelogic.com
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 4:28 AM
Subject: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS



This isn't really a question.  It's more of a semi-rant, combined with some
information that I wanted to put on the record (so that it can be googled)
because it may benefit some folks, other than just me.

I'm impatient by nature, and I don't like CUPS.  (I would say that I hate
it, but I don't actually feel that strongly.)

I have two personal workstations.  When I say personal I mean it.  I'm
the only one who ever touches them.

One of them I have been bringing back up recently after a long hiatus,
and I've just installed 8.2-RELEASE/amd64 on it.

One of the first things I found I needed to do with it, after installing
the OS and a bunch of my favorite ports  packages was to set it up for
printing to a crusty/trusty old workhorse... an HP Laserjet 3015.  (This
printer can print both plain text and Postscript, but if I just send
it plain text the output doesn't really suit me, so I've made it prettier.
See below.)

Because I've never used 8.2 before... or even any 8.x release, I naturally
went into the Handbook and looked for _current_ guidance on setting up
printers.  Most of that information was quite helpful, right up to the point
where it started discussing CUPS.

The bottom line is that CUPS is sophisticated, which is to say complex and
convoluted.  If you are impatient, then setting up CUPS properly is both
tedious and time consuming.  Of course, it _is_ essential that you properly
set up CUPS if you are setting up a _server_ that multiple people will use,
but for a personal workstation, the entire queueing structure is just overkill,
in my opinion.

More importantly, CUPS, for me at least, seems to be quite slow.  There's a
lng pause after I queue something for printing until something actually
comes out of the printer.  Maybe that's my fault, e.g. because I didn't con-
figure CUPS correctly, and maybe it isn't.  I don't know, and actually, I
don't want to know, because I found a way to nicely print stuff that just
bypasses CUPS entirely.  And it works for me, so I am a happy camper.

I just wanted to share what I did.

In a nutshell, I moved/renamed /usr/bin/lpr to /usr/bin/lpr- and replaced
it with this trivial script:


#!/bin/sh

printer='/dev/ulpt0'

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
  cat | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
else
  for arg in $* ; do
    cat $arg | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
  done
fi


My Laserjet 3015 used to be hooked up via a good old fashioned bulky centronix
parallel cable, but I thought that I ought to finally get myself into this
century, so I got a new USB 2.0 cable for it just the other day, and now it's
name is /dev/ulpt0 rather than /dev/lpt0 as before.

As you can see, the script above just takes whatever filnames are given on
the cmmand line and cats them one-by-one through psif and then the output
from that gets sent straight to /dev/ulpt0.

One little snag though... as I found out, it doesn't matter if you try to
set the SUID bit on this script and make it owned by root.  Nowadays shell
scripts simply do not do SUID anymore.  The only reason that's even signifi-
cant is that you'll probably want to be able to print while logged in as
any old user, and in order to make that work with this scheme, you have to do:

   chmod 0666 /dev/ulpt0

so that any user can write to the printer device file.

I only fiddled a couple of other small things in order to make this all work.
Firstly, I created my own versions of /usr/local/libexec/psif-text and also
/usr/local/libexec/psif-ps.  Here they are:

/usr/local/libexec/psif-text:
=
#! /bin/sh

/usr/local/bin/textps -c 10 -l 60 -m 38 -t 46  printf \004  exit 0
=

/usr/local/libexec/psif-ps:
=
#! /bin/sh

/bin/cat  printf \004  exit 0
=

The parameters for textps that I have in my psif-text file were just some
parameters that I slapped together after running a few tests to see what
values created output that looked good to me.  Your milage may vary.

After I set up all of the above stuff, I noticed that my attempts to use the
lpr command to print things from non-root user accounts was still resulting
in very long delays before anything would print.  It took me some head scratch-
ing but I finally found the problem.  In a nutshell, the problems was that
at one point while I was trying to get this all going, I did in fact install
the CUPS package (and friends).  As I

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:


Because I've never used 8.2 before... or even any 8.x release, I naturally
went into the Handbook and looked for _current_ guidance on setting up
printers.  Most of that information was quite helpful, right up to the point
where it started discussing CUPS.


There's a separate article about CUPS on the Books and Articles Online 
page:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/cups/index.html


I just wanted to share what I did.

In a nutshell, I moved/renamed /usr/bin/lpr to /usr/bin/lpr- and replaced
it with this trivial script:

...

As you can see, the script above just takes whatever filnames are given on
the cmmand line and cats them one-by-one through psif and then the output
from that gets sent straight to /dev/ulpt0.

...

The only thing that worries me about my rather ad-hoc way of setting up
a personal printer (as describe above) is that I sort of wonder what
will happen if I ever try to print something when something else is
currently printing.


There's also the issue of printing large files, which will tie up the 
command line until the printer has buffered them all.  It can be 
backgrounded, but...  Setting up lpd isn't much more involved, and 
should be able to handle many more unanticipated corner cases.



(Does anybody think that maybe this should go in the Handbook?)


Maybe.  The Handbook printing chapter is already kind of overstuffed and 
disjointed.  Here's my take on setting up lpd, covering the current 
important stuff and building step by step:


http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[John Levine]

I'm not a huge fan of CUPS, but at this point it's the best of a bad
lot.  I find the queueing useful, since I often print documents long
enough that I don't want to wait.

More importantly, CUPS, for me at least, seems to be quite slow.
There's a lng pause after I queue something for printing
until something actually comes out of the printer.

Yeah.  I have a similar printer with a similar problem.  I believe
that what's going on is that the current version of CUPS tells all the
clients to print to PDF, then for printers that don't handle PDF,
converts that to postcript using ghostscript which is very, very slow.

I think this is a bug. A few versions ago it used to tell clients to
print postscript which it can send directly to my printer.  I also
looked at using pdftops, which is much faster, to convert the PDF, but
the call to ghostscript and the ghostscript command options are wired
into the CUPS code and were more hassle to change than I wanted to do.

R's,
John
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:42:22 -0700 (PDT), Bill Tillman wrote:
 This isn't really a question.  It's more of a semi-rant, combined with some
 information that I wanted to put on the record (so that it can be googled)
 because it may benefit some folks, other than just me.
 
 I'm impatient by nature, and I don't like CUPS.  (I would say that I hate
 it, but I don't actually feel that strongly.)

Let's shake hands, and allow me to add that I'm lazy. :-)



 I have two personal workstations.  When I say personal I mean it.  I'm
 the only one who ever touches them.
 
 One of them I have been bringing back up recently after a long hiatus,
 and I've just installed 8.2-RELEASE/amd64 on it.
 
 One of the first things I found I needed to do with it, after installing
 the OS and a bunch of my favorite ports  packages was to set it up for
 printing to a crusty/trusty old workhorse... an HP Laserjet 3015.  (This
 printer can print both plain text and Postscript, but if I just send
 it plain text the output doesn't really suit me, so I've made it prettier.
 See below.)

Using PS with a Postscript printer is the default. It's
exceptional (!) ability to also process pure ASCII text
isn't used in many cases, but can be helpful if you need
to bypass the printer spooler mechanism for some reason
and just have to print simple listings, like

% ls /etc | awk '{ printf %s\r\n, $0; }'  /dev/lpt0

or  /dev/u(n)lpt0 if the printer is connected locally.



 Because I've never used 8.2 before... or even any 8.x release, I naturally
 went into the Handbook and looked for _current_ guidance on setting up
 printers. 

Due to the many standards (correct: many deviations) in
what printer manufacturers sell to their dear customers,
there's hardly a one size fits all recipe. If you have
a _standard_ printer (ASCII, PS or PCL), things are quite
easy. If you haven't -- you usually have purchased a home
entertaiment ink pee sheet feeder egg-laying wool-milk-sow --
you need a more conplex solution.



 Most of that information was quite helpful, right up to the point
 where it started discussing CUPS.
 
 The bottom line is that CUPS is sophisticated, which is to say complex and
 convoluted. 

In my opinion, CUPS is the Windows way of doing things,
not the UNIX way. Hate me for having that opinion, but I
feel to say it.



 If you are impatient, then setting up CUPS properly is both
 tedious and time consuming. 

It is, I've tried it many times, and meanwhile I consider
writing my own printer filters the easier task!



 Of course, it _is_ essential that you properly
 set up CUPS if you are setting up a _server_ that multiple people will use,
 but for a personal workstation, the entire queueing structure is just 
 overkill,
 in my opinion.

Setting up printer server functionality without CUPS is
very easy, given the fact that you actually bought a
real printer. :-)



 More importantly, CUPS, for me at least, seems to be quite slow.  There's a
 lng pause after I queue something for printing until something 
 actually
 comes out of the printer. 

Hmmm... In my experience, it depends on what you input
to the CUPS queue. Things like pictures may take a while
for rasterization and PS translation, other things are
out on paper much faster. I have to say that I'm using
an Ethernet-connected Laserjet 4000d here.


 Maybe that's my fault, e.g. because I didn't con-
 figure CUPS correctly, and maybe it isn't.  I don't know, and actually, I
 don't want to know, because I found a way to nicely print stuff that just
 bypasses CUPS entirely.  And it works for me, so I am a happy camper.

Isn't that what everyone wants?

BUT: CUPS seems to be hardcoded into many applications
today. They stopped working with the non-CUPS default
system tools. An example is Opera. Another one is Gimp
which works with system lp* tools, but has hardcoded
queries to lpstat (a CUPS program that doesn't exist
or cannot connect to the server). The upcoming question
here is: WHY???



 I just wanted to share what I did.
 
 In a nutshell, I moved/renamed /usr/bin/lpr to /usr/bin/lpr- and replaced
 it with this trivial script:
 
 
 #!/bin/sh
 
 printer='/dev/ulpt0'
 
 if [ $# = 0 ]; then
   cat | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
 else
   for arg in $* ; do
     cat $arg | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
   done
 fi
 

Yes, this is how many printer filters work. Collections
like apsfilter (that work WITH the system lp* tools, unlike
CUPS!) bring gs-based printer filters for PS, PCL and many
other devices.

% cat /opt/libexec/ps2pcl-dup.sh 
#!/bin/sh
printf \033k2G || exit 2
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dPARANOIDSAFER -dSAFER -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -r600x600 \
-sDEVICE=ljet4d -dDuplex=true \
-sOutputFile=- -  exit 0
exit 2

This is one of my gs-based printer filters (derived from
apsfilter, no pretty-printing here, 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[C. P. Ghost]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:
 BUT: CUPS seems to be hardcoded into many applications
 today. They stopped working with the non-CUPS default
 system tools. An example is Opera. Another one is Gimp
 which works with system lp* tools, but has hardcoded
 queries to lpstat (a CUPS program that doesn't exist
 or cannot connect to the server). The upcoming question
 here is: WHY???

(...)

 CUPS also has program names that are derived from LPR's
 competitor. The lpstat command is such an example, and
 I think lpadmin also is.

lpstat and lpadmin are standard SysV tools for printing.
They existed LONG before CUPS:

http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/print/sol_lp1.html

Please note that there are two distinct toolsets for (traditional)
UNIX printing:
  * lpr tools for BSD printing
  * lp tools for SysV printing
Please don't call the BSD lpr toolset lp tools, that's pretty
confusing to us old-gen sysadmins. ;-)

Regards,
-cpghost.

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:17:55 +0200, C. P. Ghost wrote:
 On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:
  BUT: CUPS seems to be hardcoded into many applications
  today. They stopped working with the non-CUPS default
  system tools. An example is Opera. Another one is Gimp
  which works with system lp* tools, but has hardcoded
  queries to lpstat (a CUPS program that doesn't exist
  or cannot connect to the server). The upcoming question
  here is: WHY???
 
 (...)
 
  CUPS also has program names that are derived from LPR's
  competitor. The lpstat command is such an example, and
  I think lpadmin also is.
 
 lpstat and lpadmin are standard SysV tools for printing.

Ah, thanks for reminding me to that fact. As I said, I
knew they came from another system which was different
from BSD's lpr / lpd / lpq / lprm tools.



 They existed LONG before CUPS:
 
 http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/print/sol_lp1.html
 
 Please note that there are two distinct toolsets for (traditional)
 UNIX printing:
   * lpr tools for BSD printing
   * lp tools for SysV printing
 Please don't call the BSD lpr toolset lp tools, that's pretty
 confusing to us old-gen sysadmins. ;-)

I'll keep that in mind, thanks, and I hope to also grow
old as a sysadmin so I get educated properly to use the
correct terminology. :-)

toolsets = {
lp  /* System V */
lpr /* BSD */
CUPS/* the future, the bright and happy future! */
}


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Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Matthew Seaman]

On 27/10/2011 16:29, Polytropon wrote:
 In my opinion, CUPS is the Windows way of doing things,
 not the UNIX way. Hate me for having that opinion, but I
 feel to say it.

Actually you can't blame Bill for this one.  CUPS is an Apple / MacOS X
thing.  I must say, it works really smoothly on my MacBook -- I just
plug in the USB cable from my printer and hit print -- but I never got
it to work properly under FreeBSD.  (Mostly that was because I had the
system lpr working just fine on my old FBSD machine connected to the
printer using a parallel port.  Newer hardware doesn't even have a
parallel port now.)

Cheers,

Matthew

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:41:38 +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote:
 On 27/10/2011 16:29, Polytropon wrote:
  In my opinion, CUPS is the Windows way of doing things,
  not the UNIX way. Hate me for having that opinion, but I
  feel to say it.
 
 Actually you can't blame Bill for this one.  CUPS is an Apple / MacOS X
 thing.  I must say, it works really smoothly on my MacBook -- I just
 plug in the USB cable from my printer and hit print -- but I never got
 it to work properly under FreeBSD.  (Mostly that was because I had the
 system lpr working just fine on my old FBSD machine connected to the
 printer using a parallel port.  Newer hardware doesn't even have a
 parallel port now.)

If I remember correctly, CUPS started as a Linux project
and was then incorporated into Mac OS X. Yes, no problems
there, I've seen it work smoothly as intended, but not
on FreeBSD so far. :-)




-- 
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Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Matthias Apitz]

El día Thursday, October 27, 2011 a las 07:00:39PM +0200, Polytropon escribió:

  Actually you can't blame Bill for this one.  CUPS is an Apple / MacOS X
  thing.  I must say, it works really smoothly on my MacBook -- I just
  plug in the USB cable from my printer and hit print -- but I never got
  it to work properly under FreeBSD.  (Mostly that was because I had the
  system lpr working just fine on my old FBSD machine connected to the
  printer using a parallel port.  Newer hardware doesn't even have a
  parallel port now.)
 
 If I remember correctly, CUPS started as a Linux project
 and was then incorporated into Mac OS X. Yes, no problems
 there, I've seen it work smoothly as intended, but not
 on FreeBSD so far. :-)

CUPS 1.4.3 is just working fine for me on FreeBSD 9-CURRENT, SunOS and
Linux SLES. You configure the (network) printers through the web
interface, or with lpadmin(8) and you just print from cmd line with
lpr(1), from KDE or Gnome apps. It allows also to print UTF-8 textfiles
(rendered to Postscript with the correct glyphs on the flight) or has a
PDF backend to create PDF printouts the 'normal' way (by printing them
to a PDF printer) to the local file system.

HIH

matthias
-- 
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t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:41:38 +0100
Matthew Seaman articulated:

 On 27/10/2011 16:29, Polytropon wrote:
  In my opinion, CUPS is the Windows way of doing things,
  not the UNIX way. Hate me for having that opinion, but I
  feel to say it.
 
 Actually you can't blame Bill for this one.  CUPS is an Apple / MacOS
 X thing.  I must say, it works really smoothly on my MacBook -- I just
 plug in the USB cable from my printer and hit print -- but I never got
 it to work properly under FreeBSD.  (Mostly that was because I had the
 system lpr working just fine on my old FBSD machine connected to the
 printer using a parallel port.  Newer hardware doesn't even have a
 parallel port now.)

Printing under MS Windows is a breeze. The *nix community has never
gotten printing up to that lever. While there are those who continually
blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any other
alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed the
creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a zero
based projected cash flow, would be removed from office posthaste.

Even the few companies that do write a limited set of drivers for the
exceedingly fragmented *.nix community tend to stick with vanilla Linux
and perhaps Debian. It took nVidia years (literally) to get FreeBSD to
update their product to the point when nVidia could supply 64 bit
drivers.

I recently spoke with a representative from Brothers regarding
securing a driver for one of their laser printers. He himself is a
Linux man and said that he felt my pain. He also informed me that while
it had been discussed from time to time, it was always felt that it
would be a lose-lose situation. They do supply drivers for Linux and
Debian but that is about it. He stated that it was felt that the cost
of writing drivers for a widely fragmented community and then having to
support said drivers would just not be financially feasible.

Printing has come a long way from the parallel port configuration.
Many now use wireless connections for instance. I love wireless
printers myself. However, here again problems arise. FreeBSD supplies
virtually no N protocol certified drivers which negates the
effectiveness of an N protocol based wireless printer.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or ignored.
Do not CC this poster. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Chip Camden]

Quoth Ronald F. Guilmette on Thursday, 27 October 2011:
 
 #!/bin/sh
 
 printer='/dev/ulpt0'
 
 if [ $# = 0 ]; then
   cat | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
 else
   for arg in $* ; do
 cat $arg | /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
   done
 fi

Not to be a pedant (okay, maybe I am), but you could eliminate the
extraneous `cat` in both commands:

#!/bin/sh

printer='/dev/ulpt0'

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
  /usr/local/libexec/psif  $printer
else
  for arg in $* ; do
/usr/local/libexec/psif  $arg  $printer
  done
fi

Nice work, though!

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..O | sterl...@camdensoftware.com | http://chipsquips.com
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Chuck Swiger]

On Oct 27, 2011, at 10:39 AM, Jerry wrote:
 Printing under MS Windows is a breeze. The *nix community has never
 gotten printing up to that lever.

Of course Unix has had functional printing; the issue is mostly dumb printers 
which can't accept PostScript or at least PCL, and need an OS-specific driver 
to rasterize for the device.  A secondary problem is X11's imaging model with 
the dichotomy between on-screen imaging and print imaging.

For examples of Unix printing done right, look back to NEXTSTEP twenty years 
ago, using Display Postscript and Pantone colorimetry to provide true WYSIWYG; 
also, Sun's NEWS and OpenWindows also had the DPS extension to X.  Most of that 
technology is still around under MacOS X, although DPS has largely been 
replaced by a PDF imaging model instead.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.

 The *nix community has never
 gotten printing up to that lever.

It _had_, past tense. :-)



 While there are those who continually
 blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any other
 alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed the
 creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
 non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a zero
 based projected cash flow, would be removed from office posthaste.

Fully agree, but if established standards would have
been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
One standard interface could address all printer
functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
or faxing functionalities quite common in the egg-laying
wool-milk-sows we see on the consumer markets.

Sadly, the one standard doesn't seem to exist, and
manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
OS could implement it.

There's a reason for that: Companies that develop
printers want money. They need to continuously sell
printers, and there's an ongoing renewal of hardware
and software, e. g. new printer requires new OS, new
OS requires new printer. This is done by planned
obsolescense.

Just imagine you had a printer that would work with
any OS. First of all, you wouldn't buy a Windows,
so the deal between the manufacturer and MICROS~1
would break: We make our devices for your 'Windows',
you tell us about your interfaces, and we make a
driver for your current product. You would be able
to use your printer with a free OS. Furthermore,
if this free OS got updated, you would continue
using your printer because the new OS would also
support it, unlike Windows that would not have
support for the printer anymore, encouraging you
to buy a new one.

On the other hand, this business model benefits the
development of new technology (financed by unit
sales), and making technology cheaper to purchase.

Downside here again: The cheaper printers become,
the more paper is wasted for printing. Yes, I know
the paperless office is a pure utopia, but I've
seen things... scary things...

Example: In a company I know emailing is quite new.
When office A wants to send a document to office B
per email, A prints the email message and faxes it
to B, where it also gets printed (inkpee and laser
faxes). After that, B checks for new messages and
then prints the message he received.



 Even the few companies that do write a limited set of drivers for the
 exceedingly fragmented *.nix community tend to stick with vanilla Linux
 and perhaps Debian. It took nVidia years (literally) to get FreeBSD to
 update their product to the point when nVidia could supply 64 bit
 drivers.

Right, it simply doesn't pay in the first place to
support that fragmented... can I say target point?
It's more like a whole forrest of targets that's 
changing very often. :-)

Really, I agree that the same business logic applies
in driver support. As the success of free systems is
not measured by unit sales, there is no such thing
as market share for them. But market share decides
about what manufacturers pay attention to.

In the past, they were forced to support certain
standards in order to get their devices sold. A
printer that could not be addressed by standard
Epson codes just wouldn't sell. Later on, PS was
the only thing you could sell a printer. (The same
applied to graphics cards which needed to support
standardized command sets in order to work properly.)

Today, this is not important anymore as individual
drivers for specific Windows versions are the key
to unit sales. This is of course a short-term
decision, but finally most three-letter-superiors
decide by quarterly numbers.

This _may_ turn out to be contraproductive in the
end. The decision makers just hope to have moved
to a different position when this happens where they
get a better wage for less responsibility. :-)



 I recently spoke with a representative from Brothers regarding
 securing a driver for one of their laser printers. He himself is a
 Linux man and said that he felt my pain. He also informed me that while
 it had been discussed from time to time, it was always felt that it
 would be a lose-lose situation. They do supply drivers for Linux and
 Debian but that is about it. He stated that it was felt that the cost
 of writing drivers for a widely fragmented community and then having to
 support said drivers would just not be financially feasible.

Interesting. I always thought CUPS (which is common across
the many Linusi, as well as standard in Mac OS X) would have
a PPD plugin (or was it the Foomatic stuff? I can't properly
tell...) that allows printer manufacturers to write
drivers according to that documented interface, so there's
no need to code hardare- or OS-specific things anymore,

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message 20111027143609.60335.qm...@joyce.lan, you wrote:

I'm not a huge fan of CUPS, but at this point it's the best of a bad
lot.  I find the queueing useful, since I often print documents long
enough that I don't want to wait.

I don't quite understand the issue you are raising john.

Even with my direct-to-/dev/{u}lpt0 approach, if I needed to print a really
big file, I would just start the print in one window and then minimize that
one and continue on working in my other windows.  I mean in what way would
one need to wait?

More importantly, CUPS, for me at least, seems to be quite slow.
There's a lng pause after I queue something for printing
until something actually comes out of the printer.

Yeah.  I have a similar printer with a similar problem.  I believe
that what's going on is that the current version of CUPS tells all the
clients to print to PDF, then for printers that don't handle PDF,
converts that to postcript using ghostscript which is very, very slow.

Huh??

John are you saying that my documents, some of which *start out* as .PS files,
are converted by CUPS to .PDF and thence (since I don't have any printers
that speak PDF) the document is then converted *back* to Postscript for
actual printing??

If so, I can sure see why the multiple pointless conversion would indeed
take up a lot of time.

I think this is a bug.

If it is, then I think it may be a long-standing one.

I did something very like what I just described doing on FreeBSD 8.2 also
back on my old FreeBSD 7.0 system which I first installed maybe three years
of more ago.

I can't really remember anymore if I did it primarily for speed reasons or
because (as now) I just didn't want to have to go thru all fo the falderall
of properly configuring CUPS, but I suspect it was both.


Regards,
rfg
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message alpine.bsf.2.00.1110270834540.94...@wonkity.com, 
Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote:

...
 The only thing that worries me about my rather ad-hoc way of setting up
 a personal printer (as describe above) is that I sort of wonder what
 will happen if I ever try to print something when something else is
 currently printing.

There's also the issue of printing large files, which will tie up the 
command line until the printer has buffered them all...

Tie up the command line ??

John Levine attempted to make the same point, and I'm still not really getting
it.  This is why we have X!  I can have all of the command lines that I want,
and I frequently do.  I have at least 15 different xterm windows open as we
speak, so I really don't see tying up the command line as a real issue.


Regards,
rfg
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
  Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.
 
  The *nix community has never
  gotten printing up to that lever.
 
 It _had_, past tense. :-)
 
  While there are those who continually
  blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any
  other alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed
  the creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
  non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a
  zero based projected cash flow, would be removed from office
  posthaste.
 
 Fully agree, but if established standards would have
 been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
 products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
 One standard interface could address all printer
 functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
 or faxing functionalities quite common in the egg-laying
 wool-milk-sows we see on the consumer markets.

First of all let me say that I love standards; there are so many of
them to choose from.

Secondly, I seriously hope that never comes to pass. Once you lock
yourself into one specific interface the ability to innovate has been
removed. I cannot think of a worse possible scenario.

Three million years ago a branch of man figured out that he could
sharpen a stone and use it to cut with. A new standard was born. One
million years later that same branch had not figured out that they could
attach a short piece of wood to that stone thus creating a handle and a
new tool. They died out obviously. A perfect example of what happens
when you cannot adapt.

Standards in some circumstances may have their place; however, when
they lock you into a culture where you are unable to adapt to newer
technology or where your ability to innovate has been squashed, then you
too are doomed to oblivion.

 Sadly, the one standard doesn't seem to exist, and
 manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
 such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
 OS could implement it.

There you go putting restriction on how such an standard should be
implemented. I have a better idea. Why doesn't the *nix/*BSD {pick any
other letter combination that turns you on} agree to one uniform method
of implementing printer drivers and then let the manufacturers
implement it on their end. I have spoke to two company reps in the
past year, one regarding printers, and both stated outright that the
thought of writing and maintaining drivers on a multitude of platforms
scares them to death. The problem is not with the manufacturers but
rather with the fragmentation of the non-windows arena.

I remember when Hayes ruled the modem world. The Hayes command set
was the de facto standard. The along came U.S. Robotics and said, Screw
you Hayes and your friggin command set. We can do it faster and better
without your crap. And, they did. The same can be said about Epson and
their printer command set. Hell, the list goes on and on. Today, PS or
PCL (there are strong supports on both sides of the aisle) might be
king, but what about tomorrow. Locking yourself into any technology is
suicide. Classical Dinosaur Thinking as it is referred to in the
business world. You do know what happened to those creatures when they
could not adapt don't you.

The fact that companies do not directly support *BSD, etcetera is not
news. The fact that FreeBSD does not support the technology that is
available (does the phase N Protocol ring a bell) is the problem that
should be addressed. 

 There's a reason for that: Companies that develop
 printers want money. They need to continuously sell
 printers, and there's an ongoing renewal of hardware
 and software, e. g. new printer requires new OS, new
 OS requires new printer. This is done by planned
 obsolescense.

You can make that statement in regards to cars, airplanes, etcetera. It
is just an empty sound bite. By the way, since the days of DOS, I have
never purchased a printer that then required me to update my OS.

 Just imagine you had a printer that would work with
 any OS. First of all, you wouldn't buy a Windows,
 so the deal between the manufacturer and MICROS~1
 would break: We make our devices for your 'Windows',
 you tell us about your interfaces, and we make a
 driver for your current product. You would be able
 to use your printer with a free OS. Furthermore,
 if this free OS got updated, you would continue
 using your printer because the new OS would also
 support it, unlike Windows that would not have
 support for the printer anymore, encouraging you
 to buy a new one.

I have  the ability to use a driver from Win95 up to XP, and in a few
case even Vista. On the other hand, updating FreeBSD to a new major
version number and in the case of the nVidia display driver even a
minor number, causes me to force a rebuild of the system. Just for
clarification, a minor system update with nVidia only causes me to 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Mark Felder]

You've just made me a happy, happy user. I always wondered what it would  
take to get rid of CUPS, and today I've done it. Finally my print jobs are  
instantaneous here at work instead of being a mystery. Can't wait to go  
home and do the same with my personal laser.

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[John Levine]

I'm not a huge fan of CUPS, but at this point it's the best of a bad
lot.  I find the queueing useful, since I often print documents long
enough that I don't want to wait.

I don't quite understand the issue you are raising john.

$ lpr foo
$ lpr bar
$ lpr baz

It will print the three files in a row, starting each when the previous
one is done.  Like, you know, a print queue.

John are you saying that my documents, some of which *start out* as
.PS files, are converted by CUPS to .PDF and thence (since I don't
have any printers that speak PDF) the document is then converted
*back* to Postscript for actual printing??

Seems that way, based on a little poking around.  If I use something
like evince, I think it will do whatever CUPS tells it to do.  If I
use the basic CUPS lpr command to print a .ps file, that's fast since
there's nothing smart enough to do something stupid.

I think this is a bug.

If it is, then I think it may be a long-standing one.

I did something very like what I just described doing on FreeBSD 8.2 also
back on my old FreeBSD 7.0 system which I first installed maybe three years
of more ago.

My recollection is that CUPS on FBSD 7 printed a lot faster, although
it also may have something to do with the fact that I used to use a
USB to parallel thing, and since then I scored a print server card on
ebay for about $15 and print over the network.  (There are other
computers on the network that other people print from, so this is an
overall win.)

R's,
John

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:46:21 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:
 
  On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
   Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.
  
   The *nix community has never
   gotten printing up to that lever.
  
  It _had_, past tense. :-)
  
   While there are those who continually
   blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any
   other alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed
   the creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
   non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a
   zero based projected cash flow, would be removed from office
   posthaste.
  
  Fully agree, but if established standards would have
  been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
  products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
  One standard interface could address all printer
  functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
  or faxing functionalities quite common in the egg-laying
  wool-milk-sows we see on the consumer markets.
 
 First of all let me say that I love standards; there are so many of
 them to choose from.

I _knew_ you would bring that statement. :-)



 Secondly, I seriously hope that never comes to pass. Once you lock
 yourself into one specific interface the ability to innovate has been
 removed. I cannot think of a worse possible scenario.

Yes, this is a common problem with standards that are
narrow enough to _prohibit_ innovations, instead of
providing help for them. Standards like bus architecture
and cabling are the reason why many new products have
been developed in the past, bursting the margins of
what those standards provided. Just think about the
transition of buses where GPU hardware plugs in. Still
we do _not_ see a situation where every GPU manufacturer
requires its own expansion slot.

Other standards come from the media industry. Again,
selling items is the key here. If each publisher would
have used his own format to distribute music or movies,
what a mess it would be. No, you can't play a Warner
movie on a Sony player, you need a Samsung player of
2008 or 2009 to play it. The 2010 version cannot be
used anymore, as they switched to a new innovative
format.

In such an imaginary case, it would be nonsense to
speak of standards. Standards are a form of consensus
among many parties. Sadly, some standards are seen
as the worst common solution in some fields, especially
from a technical point of view. Still they are used
because they just work. They have _proven_ to be
reliable - this is something new technology CAN'T
simply because it's too new. It's comparable to
claim that a pharmacy product doesn't have any
long-term effects right after introducing it to the
market!



 Three million years ago a branch of man figured out that he could
 sharpen a stone and use it to cut with. A new standard was born. One
 million years later that same branch had not figured out that they could
 attach a short piece of wood to that stone thus creating a handle and a
 new tool. They died out obviously. A perfect example of what happens
 when you cannot adapt.

Adoption is the strength of the week. :-)



 Standards in some circumstances may have their place; however, when
 they lock you into a culture where you are unable to adapt to newer
 technology or where your ability to innovate has been squashed, then you
 too are doomed to oblivion.

Fully agree - and if you are honest, it's the same
thing with proprietary products that live under the
reign of planned obsolescense. They are defined to
work under specific circumstances for a finite time
that the manufacturer sets up implicitely. This means
you have to say goodbye to a technology that exactly
fits your needs, but its manufacturer wants to sell
you something new that _maybe_ fits your needs, _maybe_
not, or with increased work or time (to _make_ it
work _again_).

Standards are the key to introduce new products.
Even in the realm of innovation, the typical
question of customers is: Can I use it with...?,
and that is also the reason why there's still so
much legacy technology around. Just think about a
quite popular 10 year old Windows that's still
in wide use, even though it's obsolete since its
introduction. Adoption? Innovation? Improvement?
No thanks, we use what we know.



  Sadly, the one standard doesn't seem to exist, and
  manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
  such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
  OS could implement it.
 
 There you go putting restriction on how such an standard should be
 implemented.

Yes. In my opinion, this is a requirement to be
provided on a free market. Or people wouldn't have
learned anything from the big fails of history.



 I have a better idea. Why doesn't the *nix/*BSD {pick any
 other letter combination that turns you on} agree to one uniform method
 of implementing printer drivers and then let the 

Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:52:49 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 There isn't much you can invent on a hammer. :-)

Absolutely true. However, as Abraham Maslow said in 1966, It is
tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as
if it were a nail.

This sort of tunnel vision, at least in my opinion, has infected the
*BSD community in general. They look at a problem and then, rather than
finding a solution, find someone to blame. My my late father was so
fond of saying when someone complained, It's better to light a candle
than curse the darkness.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Robert Bonomi]

 From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Thu Oct 27 16:46:51 2011
 Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:46:21 -0400
 From: Jerry je...@seibercom.net
 To: FreeBSD freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

 On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:

  On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
   Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.
  
   The *nix community has never
   gotten printing up to that lever.
  
  It _had_, past tense. :-)
  
   While there are those who continually
   blame the manufacturers, the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any
   other alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed
   the creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
   non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a
   zero based projected cash flow, would be removed from office
   posthaste.
  
  Fully agree, but if established standards would have
  been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
  products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
  One standard interface could address all printer
  functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
  or faxing functionalities quite common in the egg-laying
  wool-milk-sows we see on the consumer markets.

 First of all let me say that I love standards; there are so many of
 them to choose from.

 Secondly, I seriously hope that never comes to pass. Once you lock
 yourself into one specific interface the ability to innovate has been
 removed. I cannot think of a worse possible scenario.

There's no real need for a 'standard' for communication with dumb raster
devices, which is what most 'winprinters' are.  

All that is needed is a _published_ specification such that others
can implement communications with that device.

And there isn't a whole lot to such a specification:
  How start-of-page is marked
  How start-of-line is marked
  How end-of-line is marked
  How end-of-page is marked
  How pixels are represented
  Pixels per raster line,
  Raster lines per page,
  How the bits are sequenced
  The compression methodology, if any, used.

there is little reason _not_ to make such specification public.

  Sadly, the one standard doesn't seem to exist, and
  manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
  such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
  OS could implement it.

 There you go putting restriction on how such an standard should be
 implemented. I have a better idea. Why doesn't the *nix/*BSD {pick any
 other letter combination that turns you on} agree to one uniform method
 of implementing printer drivers and then let the manufacturers
 implement it on their end.

You argued cogently _against_ manufacturers using standards.
Now you argue in favor of the entire *nix commnity agreeing on one.

Somehow, the phrase double standard' springs to mind.  grin

I have spoke to two company reps in the
 past year, one regarding printers, and both stated outright that the
 thought of writing and maintaining drivers on a multitude of platforms
 scares them to death. The problem is not with the manufacturers but
 rather with the fragmentation of the non-windows arena.

There is -no- need for *them* to actually write drivers for use in 
'specialty'/'niche' markets. 

*ALL* they have to do is release the 'specifications' for the communications 
format and protocol that the device uses.
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:39:17 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:52:49 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:
 
  There isn't much you can invent on a hammer. :-)
 
 Absolutely true. However, as Abraham Maslow said in 1966, It is
 tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as
 if it were a nail.

Heh, I also thought about that saying after sending
the message. Maybe a bad example. :-)



 This sort of tunnel vision, at least in my opinion, has infected the
 *BSD community in general. They look at a problem and then, rather than
 finding a solution, find someone to blame. My my late father was so
 fond of saying when someone complained, It's better to light a candle
 than curse the darkness.

It's always a consideration of what to invest versus
what to get out of the deal, considering risks and
options. And often politics.

Just imagine a thing like FreeBSD would implement
a means to simply use Windows printer drivers. And
then MICROS~1 starts suing, both FreeBSD and its
users (!!!) for illegally using something.

Sounds stupid and contraproductive?

It is - but things like this seem to be common. You
surely know that MICROS~1 has more revenue from its
competitor HTC than from their own mobile phone
platform? The idea: You know, maybe we have some
patents, but we won't tell you which they are, even
in a court trial we won't, but maybe we have some.
And if you don't pay $5 per unit sold, then...
maybe... we'll sue you and all your customers.
The fee has been raised to $15 some time later.
(If I understood the process correctly - I'm not
much interested in this mobile stuff and all the
ugly politics involved because this has nothing to
do with a free market.)

There needs to be some security both for developers
and for users. Current market politics don't seem
to provide them.

On the other hand, implementing drivers for simple
printers (typical inkpee products) is easy when you
know the control codes to make the paper and the
printing head move. Reverse-engineering such stuff
isn't that easy, sadly. The question is: Are the
manufacturers willing to publish those little details?
Do they see that as too costly?

This is the opposite approach to making a Windows-like
driver interface in UNIX / Linux to use the currently
(and on the long run, partially) working drivers. But
see my concerns regarding politics  blackmail.



By the way, I'm also a fan of lighting the candle.
After all, it's a consideration of how you value your
time, if you see it worth investing in getting something
to work, learn important things (for your IT career),
or if you feel you should return something to the
community that provides you a powerful OS for free.
There are many ways you can light the candle,
it's up to you _how_ you do it. Anyway, everything
is better than staying in darkness and stumbling
into a pile of garbage. :-)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[perryh]

Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:

 Companies that develop printers want money.
 They need to continuously sell printers ...

This seems to be becoming less and less accurate.

It has long been the case that consumer-grade ink-blot printers are
sold below cost -- the money being made by selling ink cartridges.
In recent years, some manufacturers of laser printers seem to be
adopting this business model also.
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