[H-GEN] Print services to Windows from Unix

[Russell Stuart]

On 7/08/2006 6:22 PM, Greg Black wrote:
> There are also two well-known alternative print spoolers that
> can be retro-fitted to all Unix and Unix-like systems:  LPRng
> and CUPS.  I have experience with all these systems and have
> been perfectly happy with both the standard System V and BSD
> spoolers over many years.  I have tried LPRng on and off over
> the past 10 years, but it has never successfully solved any of
> the problems I would have liked it to address and offers no
> benefits over the BSD spooler in my environments.  I have
> installed several versions of CUPS and rather like it, except
> for a show-stopper bug -- none of the currently-available
> versions is capable of printing to a parallel printer on any of
> my BSD systems.  Since I still run a collection of LaserJet
> printers that are in fine condition, I must use a system that
> can talk to them.  For this reason, I consider CUPS to be an
> experimental system that is not suitable for deployment in the
> real world.

Gregs comments on CUPS not being able to drive parallel
printers on BSD is puzzling to me.  On all UNIX's I know
of a parallel printer is just /dev/lpX, and for that most
part looks like a normal albeit write-only file.  It isn't
like its hard, and it works well enough under Linux.

CUPS has a very nice GUI interface (implemented as HTML).
In fact I think that was its main design criteria - ie to
make the thing easy to use.  If so it is a success.  Its
overall architecture, ie using .ppd files and what not
is also very well thought out.

Unfortunately it has more bugs per line of code than most
Unix apps I have dealt with.  To make it usable were I
had to find one in particular (it caused the same
documented to be re-printed many times until the paper
tray was empty).  In fixing that it became obvious why
there were bugs: while the author is obviously a very
good high level designer he ain't so crash hot as a C
programmer.  I did get it working though, and the users
do like it.

> Buy the cheapest thing that seems to do what you need.  These
> gadgets are so cheap that they are a pretty safe bet on any
> modern system -- I've bought lots of cheap printers and had no
> problems printing to them on a variety of Unix systems.  I'd
> expect Linux to manage at least as well.

You have obviously never bought a "WinPrinter", Greg.  I
have made that mistake more than once, unfortunately.  In
each case it was because I just did a superficial check to
verify the printers did support advertise PCL, Postscript,
Esc/P or  some other reasonably well documented "standard".
But it turned out that was implemented by the driver - the
windows only driver.  What went over the wire to the printer
was some undocumented crap - probably a bit map.

So which just about any printer that implements a well
documented printer language will work, anything that
doesn't won't.   As far as "well defined published
standards" go, PCL and Postscript win hands down.  Beyond
those if you want the best out of your printer you tend
to use drivers written specifically that particular brand
of printer, which you may have to install by hand.  If
you are lucky they will be open source drivers supported
by the manufacturer.  If you use something like a Canon
inkjet, you will be stuck will ancient drivers that don't
get the best out of your printer.  If you end up with a
WinPrinter by mistake, then you only option is to buy a
new one.

When it comes to finding out what printers are supported
and how, use this site:

   http://www.linuxprinting.org/