Re: [Printing-user-general] Why has nothing changed?

Grant Taylor wrote:
> [email protected] (Roger Morgan) writes:
> [...]

> When one group takes it upon itself to produce an integrated and
> functional system, the result is not bad.  Apple is the shining
> example of such a system built from free software components; OS X
> bundles CUPS with Apple-written configuration and other logic and a
> block of proprietary drivers, and it basically just works.  Certainly
> better than what unthinking Linux distributors provide.

I dont know why everyone is praising Apple when it comes to integration. 
I have been administering Apple computers for quite a while, and Cups 
like it is present on 10.3 has been one of my biggest nightmares. One of 
Apples proprietary filters (pictwpstops) has crashed all the time, 
without any helpful output, and the only solution was to print into a 
PDF via distiller and printout the PDF file - so this is integration at 
its best ...

Administration of printers is a hell for itself. You can manage printer 
configuration via Apples Server Administration tools, but if you try to 
do it when sitting logged in into the server itself, it thinks of every 
printer you select to be used by the client to be installed on the local 
cups daemon - might be true for the computer you are sitting on, but not 
for the clients which are supposed to print via the server. When you try 
this task from one of the clients, it might work, but if you are 
unlucky, the clients adds the remote printers installed on the server to 
its local list on every login.

Another stupid behaviour is the printer status monitoring done by the 
clients. They poll the server at an insane rate for the status, pushing 
an idle server to 10% load. Clever ...

Fixing problems on OS X came to two possible solutions to me (and I 
tried really hard to do it proper):
1. Fix the config file with vi, and hope OS X wont overwrite it (happens 
all the time)
2. Just delete all the settings and setup the printer again

OS X is shiny at a first glance, but as all the internals are hidden, as 
soon a problem occurs, you are doomed.

On the other hand, I newer had any problem with printing using linux, 
using Inkjet printers, Postscript lasers, you name it. My father has a 
cheap lexmark I cant use, but thats not cups fault.

Stefan