printing

[Roland Smith]

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 09:53:36AM +0200, Gert Cuykens wrote:
> "USB interfaces, named for the Universal Serial Bus, can run at even
> faster speeds than parallel or RS232 serial interfaces. Cables are
> simple and cheap. USB is superior to RS232 Serial and to Parallel for
> printing, but it is not as well supported under UNIX(r) systems. A way
> to avoid this problem is to purchase a printer that has both a USB
> interface and a Parallel interface, as many printers do."
> 
> lol, a very nice translation that says usb = no printing :)

USB printing works, AFAICT. My Epson Stylus Photo 870 worked fine with USB.

> So my question is, for printing sake let there be a other way. 
> What do you use to print stuff, for example on a shared windows printer :) 
> 
> I guess there are only 3 choses LPD LPRng CUPS ?

Not quite. The venerable lpr and LPRng are just printer
spoolers. I.e. software to feed subsequent new print jobs to the right
printer after the previous one has finished.

On the other hand, apsfilter can convert many different file formats to
something your printer can understand.

Cups is like a combination of apsfilter and lpr, with an additional web
interface.

I've used apsfilter in the past, but now I prefer CUPS. 

Roland
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