Re: Network Printing recommendations please
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, Andy Kendall wrote: I've just built my 6v2 box and all is going well so far. I've read the manual and understand LPD and directly attached printers. The manual however is pretty minimal when it comes to network-based printers, (netprint), and only mentions LPRng and CUPS on a single page briefly. I understand this; it's probably because they're not direct FreeBSD products but this doesn't help a newb-to-FreeBSD like me. I only want to build the foundation system once, so, any recommendations please on what to install/configure? (Hope this doesn't start a bikeshed). lpd is in the base system and works fine. There are numerous filter packages that can be used with it, although setting up Ghostscript directly isn't too bad either. It's a single user system, for my own education (and enjoyment?) so it'll almost certainly never print any graphics or host complicated databases, etc. It's only got 512Mb RAM and a 10Gb HD so I don't have a huge resource available. The hard drive might be a little tight, but 512M of RAM is plenty. The printers I have are a bullet-proof classic/HPLJ4 with internal JetDirect card, This will work fine. The Handbook shows how to set up Ghostscript so you can treat the printer as if it understood PostScript directly. Many Unix applications produce PS output, so this is generally nice. and a new HPDeskjet 6980 (colour inkjet). linuxprinting.org says that should work also. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Network Printing recommendations please
Andy Kendall wrote: I've just built my 6v2 box and all is going well so far. I've read the manual and understand LPD and directly attached printers. The manual however is pretty minimal when it comes to network-based printers, (netprint), and only mentions LPRng and CUPS on a single page briefly. I understand this; it's probably because they're not direct FreeBSD products but this doesn't help a newb-to-FreeBSD like me. I only want to build the foundation system once, so, any recommendations please on what to install/configure? (Hope this doesn't start a bikeshed). It's a single user system, for my own education (and enjoyment?) so it'll almost certainly never print any graphics or host complicated databases, etc. It's only got 512Mb RAM and a 10Gb HD so I don't have a huge resource available. The printers I have are a bullet-proof classic/HPLJ4 with internal JetDirect card, and a new HPDeskjet 6980 (colour inkjet). I'll counter the "so far" flow by suggesting you take a look at apsfilter. I thought CUPS looked a tad daunting as a "newb", and picked apsfilter instead. Can't say I've never had printing issues, but usually it was a matter of PEBKAC rather than the software's fault. It's in ports (/usr/ports/print/apsfilter), and the project site is apsfilter.org --- which sings a number of praises, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis and .WAV support (heh, yes, you're reading that correctly). I imagine the drivers will have no problem with the old HP, but I've found that some of the "really cheapo" HP's don't have support in hpijs/gs ... if you can find that CUPS will support the printer and apsfilter won't, use CUPS instead. But Linuxprinting.org seems to indicate that the 6980 is supposed by the hpijs driver (at least for basic color printing of average documents). Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use X-Windows I don't know if I want to install it so that counts out LPRng? Well, many games and all of that, err, so-called important *content* doesn't look as good in Lynx. Apart from that, you can live and do many kinds of Actual Work quite happily without X :-D Come to think of it, maybe X isn't such a great idea, heh Apologies if this is the wrong forum or invalid posting, please advise. Many thanks Andy. (newbness embodied) Err, can't I have my body back, then? Kevin Kinsey -- All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. -- Jane Wagner ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Network Printing recommendations please
Andy Kendall wrote: I've just built my 6v2 box and all is going well so far. I've read the manual and understand LPD and directly attached printers. The manual however is pretty minimal when it comes to network-based printers, (netprint), and only mentions LPRng and CUPS on a single page briefly. I understand this; it's probably because they're not direct FreeBSD products but this doesn't help a newb-to-FreeBSD like me. I only want to build the foundation system once, so, any recommendations please on what to install/configure? (Hope this doesn't start a bikeshed). It's a single user system, for my own education (and enjoyment?) so it'll almost certainly never print any graphics or host complicated databases, etc. It's only got 512Mb RAM and a 10Gb HD so I don't have a huge resource available. The printers I have are a bullet-proof classic/HPLJ4 with internal JetDirect card, and a new HPDeskjet 6980 (colour inkjet). I'll counter the "so far" flow by suggesting you take a look at apsfilter. I thought CUPS was a bit daunting looking for me as a "newb", and picked apsfilter instead. Can't say I've never had printing issues, but usually it was a matter of PEBKAC rather than the software's fault. It's in ports (/usr/ports/print/apsfilter), and the project site is apsfilter.org --- which sings a number of praises, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis and .WAV support (heh, yes, you're reading that correctly). I imagine the drivers will have no problem with the old HP, but I'd check on the new one before committing. Chances are it can be tweaked, but I've found that some of the "really cheapo" HP's don't have support in hpijs/gs ... if you can find that CUPS will support the printer and apsfilter won't, don't use it. But Linuxprinting.org seems to indicate that the 6980 is supposed by the hpijs driver (at least for basic color printing of average documents). Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use X-Windows I don't know if I want to install it so that counts out LPRng? Apologies if this is the wrong forum or invalid posting, please advise. Many thanks Andy. (newbness embodied) Kevin Kinsey -- All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. -- Jane Wagner ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Network Printing recommendations please
On 2007/03/08 12:02, Andy Kendall seems to have typed: > The printers I have are a bullet-proof classic/HPLJ4 with internal JetDirect > card, and a new HPDeskjet 6980 (colour inkjet). > > Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use X-Windows I don't know > if I want to install it so that counts out LPRng? I would suggest trying out CUPS and reading the manual on how to use the CUPS LPR instead of the standard LPR, especially for the inkjet. http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/man-lpr.html You should be able to use LPR directly for the HPLJ4 if you don't want CUPS: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/printing-intro-setup.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Network Printing recommendations please
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 21:27:57 - "Andy Kendall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The printers I have are a bullet-proof classic/HPLJ4 with internal > JetDirect card, and a new HPDeskjet 6980 (colour inkjet). > > Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use X-Windows I > don't know if I want to install it so that counts out LPRng? > I would go with cups because you could use the HP JetDirect socket notation to connect to the printer. I believe you can do that with the standard lp commands but I've not done that. It should be easy to set up wth cups. -- Rod - Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water. Now you put water into a cup and it becomes the cup. You put water in a bottle it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. -- Bruce Lee signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Network Printing recommendations please
On Mar 8, 2007, at 1:02 PM, Andy Kendall wrote: [ ...and... ] On Mar 8, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Andy Kendall wrote: I've just built my 6v2 box and all is going well so far. I've read the manual and understand LPD and directly attached printers. The manual however is pretty minimal when it comes to network-based printers, (netprint), and only mentions LPRng and CUPS on a single page briefly. I understand this; it's probably because they're not direct FreeBSD products but this doesn't help a newb-to-FreeBSD like me. I only want to build the foundation system once, so, any recommendations please on what to install/configure? (Hope this doesn't start a bikeshed). You can use the stock lpd to print to remote/network-attached printers just fine-- use the rm and rp arguments in printcap to specify the remote printer's hostname (or IP address, possibly [1]) and spoolname...for JetDirect printers, use "lp" as the spool name, IIRC. See: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/printing- advanced.html#PRINTING-ADVANCED-NETWORK-RM Some other people seem to be happy with CUPS, and I believe MacOS X adopted CUPS as well rather than the classic lpd. I've never been a big fan of turning electronic documents into dead trees myself, so I don't have strong recommendations for one versus the other. Apologies if this is the wrong forum or invalid posting, please advise. This is the right forum, and welcome. One might wish to be a bit more patient about receiving replies, however, at least if you intended to repost so quickly -- -Chuck [1]: Some flavors of Unix insist upon having printer hostnames being well-defined in DNS or /etc/hosts, and do not support IP addresses in printcap. I don't recall whether than limitation is present in FreeBSD, or just a legacy from platforms like AIX or SCO ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"