[S.u.S.E. Linux] Printing in LInux
Fred really has a point here! One of the weakest issues in LInux is the printers! The same issue was with OS/2 1.3. The bottom line is many companies have invested in HP laserjet or some type of Deskjet (epson, cannon, hp, lexmark, etc.). And many of us didn't go with the postscript option because for our budget we didn't need it ( kinda like the AMD thing! Couldn't resist! :)) Anyway, I took the time to set them all up, but it was a pain and WAY to much time. And, if you want to interface to a NT server , then you get to aid samba to the equation (which isn't that big of deal, except the smbprint command looks different if you are sending it text versus graphics. yea I know, magicfilter to the rescue). But the bottom line is it is WAY to time consuming and too much interaction.
Ken....I'll try 1 more time.<g> Do you have any idea how much money we have tied up in printers....printers that work WELL with any flavor of Windoze?!! Speed is not the issue, unless GS is slower, but QUALITY of copy IS at issue as is the time required to setup each printer, of which there are very few the same make and model. Graphics IS an issue.....a BIG issue. Colors and resolution MUST be exact.
Fred
Fred A. Miller Systems Admin. Cornell Univ. Press Services fm@cupserv.org
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I guess I must be the odd one here. But in the environments that I have been in, the rule of thumb is: PS printer for network printing and high speed local printing, non-PS printer for regular local printing. Over the years, The printers that I have to deal with are probably a very small sample of what's in the market: C-Itoh, Lexmark, HP, Tektronix, QMS and Xerox. Out of these, maybe one or two of them are non-laser printers -- C-Itoh line printer, and Lexmark Ink Jet color printer. Looking at these, I guess I am in a different environment then. Actually, one other type of printer that I have to deal with are the NeXT printers connected to the NeXTStations. One thing that I really don't understand is why do you need Samba to get the printer to talk to NT Server. Can't you use remote TCP/IP printing in NT? Will you still have any problems if you were to just use printers like HP Laserjet to do all the printing on UNIX machines and non-UNIX machines? I thought the Windows boxes have pretty good support for the Lasetjet printers all along. Graphics printing? Send it all to the Tektronix color printers. Hey, it does the job. But I am in no way a graphics expert. The stuff that I print out are mostly plain text, manuals or any other documents in PS format. Most of the time, the only kind of graphics that I have to print are PS graphics. So again, I don't have any problems at all. And if I want my document in color, again, just send it to the Tektronix color printers. As for the AIX boxes, to my knowledge, they just print directly to a PS printer or they will need Ghostscript. But I haven't seen anyone having their RS/6000 box connected to a PCL printer before. Regards, Kenneth Tan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C. J. Kenneth Tan E-mail: cjtan@acm.org Telephone: 1-403-220-8038 cjtan@ieee.org 1-403-606-4257 URL: <A HREF="http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~tanc"><A HREF="http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~tanc</A">http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~tanc</A</A>> Facsimile: 1-403-284-1980 "An engineer made programmer is one who attempts to solve a problem, A programmer made engineer is one who knows how to solve a problem." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, punt wrote:
Fred really has a point here! One of the weakest issues in LInux is the printers! The same issue was with OS/2 1.3. The bottom line is many companies have invested in HP laserjet or some type of Deskjet (epson, cannon, hp, lexmark, etc.). And many of us didn't go with the postscript option because for our budget we didn't need it ( kinda like the AMD thing! Couldn't resist! :))
Anyway, I took the time to set them all up, but it was a pain and WAY to much time. And, if you want to interface to a NT server , then you get to aid samba to the equation (which isn't that big of deal, except the smbprint command looks different if you are sending it text versus graphics. yea I know, magicfilter to the rescue). But the bottom line is it is WAY to time consuming and too much interaction.
Ken....I'll try 1 more time.<g> Do you have any idea how much money we have tied up in printers....printers that work WELL with any flavor of Windoze?!! Speed is not the issue, unless GS is slower, but QUALITY of copy IS at issue as is the time required to setup each printer, of which there are very few the same make and model. Graphics IS an issue.....a BIG issue. Colors and resolution MUST be exact.
Fred
Fred A. Miller Systems Admin. Cornell Univ. Press Services fm@cupserv.org
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C. J. Kenneth Tan wrote:
I guess I must be the odd one here. But in the environments that I have been in, the rule of thumb is: PS printer for network printing and high speed local printing, non-PS printer for regular local printing. Over the years, The printers that I have to deal with are probably a very small sample of what's in the market: C-Itoh, Lexmark, HP, Tektronix, QMS and Xerox. Out of these, maybe one or two of them are non-laser printers -- C-Itoh line printer, and Lexmark Ink Jet color printer. Looking at these, I guess I am in a different environment then. Actually, one other type of printer that I have to deal with are the NeXT printers connected to the NeXTStations.
During the days of "centralized" computing, you'd be correct, as you're experience shows. Today, much of what was centralized isn't, thus there's more and more desktop printing being done than in the past. And, these printers are NOT PS printers. We don't have a PS printer connected to our dual P-5 server, and there won't be as there's no need for one. Most want and HAVE their own desktop printer.
One thing that I really don't understand is why do you need Samba to get the printer to talk to NT Server. Can't you use remote TCP/IP printing in NT?
'Must not be me this addressed to. I don't want to use Samba...I want to REMOVE WIN95 from all desktops.
Will you still have any problems if you were to just use printers like HP Laserjet to do all the printing on UNIX machines and non-UNIX machines? I thought the Windows boxes have pretty good support for the Lasetjet printers all along.
Why should I continue to use WIN95?
Graphics printing? Send it all to the Tektronix color printers. Hey, it does the job. But I am in no way a graphics expert. The stuff that I print out are mostly plain text, manuals or any other documents in PS format. Most of the time, the only kind of graphics that I have to print are PS graphics. So again, I don't have any problems at all. And if I want my document in color, again, just send it to the Tektronix color printers.
If I did that, I'd get "hung at noon!!!" These folks want their work off the printer NOW, and they don't care to walk any distance to get it, nor wait while another job is printing. Why should we have to buy new hardware? Our PRESENT hardware should be supported PROPERLY.
As for the AIX boxes, to my knowledge, they just print directly to a PS printer or they will need Ghostscript. But I haven't seen anyone having their RS/6000 box connected to a PCL printer before.
The RS-6000 isn't at issue here.....it's tied to 2 Dataproducts and a new Printronix 5000 series. What IS at issue, is the wide array of desktop printers that MUST be properly supported. Fred -- Fred A. Miller, Systems Administrator Cornell Univ. Press Services fmiller@lightlink.com fm@cupserv.org - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e
punt wrote:
Fred really has a point here! One of the weakest issues in LInux is the printers! The same issue was with OS/2 1.3. The bottom line is many companies have invested in HP laserjet or some type of Deskjet (epson, cannon, hp, lexmark, etc.). And many of us didn't go with the postscript option because for our budget we didn't need it ( kinda like the AMD thing! Couldn't resist!
Yer forgiven.<g> I had been retired from my insurance business for about 5 years, when I decieded to go back to work. Two years ago this past April, my dept. at Cornell created a new position. When I started, we didn't have any laser printers, nor bubble jets, etc....all dot matrix. 'Puters were a mix of '286, '386, a few '486 and only 4 P-5's. There was no mail server and only 2 people had access to the "outside" (net) via modem from their desktops. MessyDOS was the prominant OS, with some WIN3.11 on the newer boxes. All accounting, inventory, etc., was done on an RS-6000 570, and accessed via RS232 by IBM terminals and the PC's. A tad over 2 years later, we have a dual P-5 server with Cogent 100 base hubs, P-5's or better replaced all the old 'puters (either new or I rebuilt systems), and a bunch of bubble jets. I reluctently agreed to put NT on the server and Win-95 on the workstations. BOTH have given us a lot of grief. So, our situation is very much like the majority of the Country....new or almost new and old hardware that MUST be properly supported if Linux is to be used.
Anyway, I took the time to set them all up, but it was a pain and WAY to much time. And, if you want to interface to a NT server , then you get to aid samba to the equation (which isn't that big of deal, except the smbprint command looks different if you are sending it text versus graphics. yea I know, magicfilter to the rescue). But the bottom line is it is WAY to time consuming and too much interaction.
'Got that right, and I want to get rid of NT anyway. Fred -- Fred A. Miller, Systems Administrator Cornell Univ. Press Services fmiller@lightlink.com fm@cupserv.org - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e
On Mon, Jul 27, 1998 at 07:24:09PM -0400, punt wrote:
Fred really has a point here! One of the weakest issues in LInux is the printers! The same issue was with OS/2 1.3. The bottom line is many companies have invested in HP laserjet or some type of Deskjet (epson, cannon, hp, lexmark, etc.). And many of us didn't go with the postscript option because for our budget we didn't need it ( kinda like the AMD thing! Couldn't resist! :))
Anyway, I took the time to set them all up, but it was a pain and WAY to much time. And, if you want to interface to a NT server , then you get to aid samba to the equation (which isn't that big of deal, except the smbprint command looks different if you are sending it text versus graphics. yea I know, magicfilter to the rescue). But the bottom line is it is WAY to time consuming and too much interaction.
As someone who went from OS/2 1.3 to 2.1 and then beyond... I support probably 1,000 OS/2 users where I work plus a steadily growing NT community. I've been an OS/2 user for some years but finally stopped after sometime with warp 4. The printer issue has always been an issue in warp and before. All one has to do is check out something like dejanews to see the number of issues regarding printers and printer drivers. IBM released a generic driver called the omni.drv which did basically a lousy job of printing everything by default... But one could hack the settings and get better quality. The main message is that OS/2 1.3 is long gone. I print out of applix in linux; I print from warp 3, I print from NT... One issue regarding printing is that custom printer drivers have been made for OS/2. One can look at a company called lexmark; which made custom drivers for quite some time. The issues regarding OS/2 printing go deeper than just lack of drivers or difficult to build drivers or difficult to obtain support. I think linux could benefit from a common driver model for printing. OS/2 did not though. The omni.drv thing did not work because it was too common and there were too many printers with their own ideas about printing and color mixing, etc. I have not tried samba to interface some windoze systems yet. But I have compiled ghostscript. I would rather go to a dentist than compile ghostscript again... :) -- Michael E. Perry mperry@basin.com ------------------- - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e
participants (4)
-
cjtan＠acm.org -
fmiller＠lightlink.com -
mperry＠basin.com -
punt＠gte.net