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

Stefan Bruens wrote:

>Grant Taylor wrote:
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>>[email protected] (Roger Morgan) writes:
>>[...]
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>>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.
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>I dont know why everyone is praising Apple when it comes to integration. 
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Well,   I recently bought a Okidata C3200 color laser.  Windows printing 
is excellent, and the vendor supplied driver
works well under OS X.   After repeated failures to print to it from 
Suse Linux 8.2, even after installing the latest CUPS, 
 I  finally called Okidata for support.  The support technician from 
Okidata explained that their engineers were able to write a driver
for OS X, but don't have plans to release a Linux driver.  So the end 
result is that for this particular non-postscript printer,
Linux support is non existent.   Consequently I have to praise Apple for 
supplying Okidata with the hooks that they needed
to write a working driver for OS X.   The driver uses Gimp-print, and I 
was unable to port it to linux.

Incidentally I do have CUPS printing working on the Suse machine for an 
HP 4100 laser that is hanging off a Sun workstation running Solaris 2.6
as a LPD printer;  So I know that the version of CUPS on the Suse 
machine works... but not with the Okidata C3200.  Very frustrating!
I recently upgraded the Suse machine to the latest Suse,  Novell's 
version 10.1 which is supplied on DVD with the July 2006 issue of
Linux Pro Magazine.  CUPS printing still worked flawlessly to the LPR 
printer after the upgrade, but  still does not work with the C3200.
Okidata wants you to buy a more expensive model in order to support 
Postscript.    For now I am still impressed that the Okidata
engineers were able to write a working raster driver for OS X.    At 
$299.00, the C3200 was a good buy and I am willing to forgive
the lack of linux printing. 

This may give you some understanding of why people praise Apple in this  
situation.

>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 ...
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I have been printing flawlessly using Cups for the last 2 months on a G4 
desktop running 10.3.9.  No problems at all.

>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.
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>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 ...
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>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
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>OS X is shiny at a first glance, but as all the internals are hidden, as 
>soon a problem occurs, you are doomed.
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Well, once you install fink (available from Sourceforge) then you can 
perform binary and source installations
of over 2,000 open source programs.  Not bad at all for a consumer OS!

>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
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