Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Jerry]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

> On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote:
> > Printing under MS Windows is a breeze.
> 
> > The *nix community has never
> > gotten printing up to that lever.
> 
> It _had_, past tense. :-)
> 
> > While there are those who continually
> > blame the "manufacturers", the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any
> > other alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed
> > the creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for
> > non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a
> > zero based projected cash flow, would be removed from office
> > posthaste.
> 
> Fully agree, but if established standards would have
> been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their
> products, there would be no need to develop any drivers.
> One standard interface could address all printer
> functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning
> or faxing functionalities quite common in the "egg-laying
> wool-milk-sows" we see on the consumer markets.

First of all let me say that I love standards; there are so many of
them to choose from.

Secondly, I seriously hope that never comes to pass. Once you lock
yourself into one specific interface the ability to innovate has been
removed. I cannot think of a worse possible scenario.

Three million years ago a branch of man figured out that he could
sharpen a stone and use it to cut with. A new standard was born. One
million years later that same branch had not figured out that they could
attach a short piece of wood to that stone thus creating a handle and a
new tool. They died out obviously. A perfect example of what happens
when you cannot adapt.

Standards in some circumstances may have their place; however, when
they lock you into a culture where you are unable to adapt to newer
technology or where your ability to innovate has been squashed, then you
too are doomed to oblivion.

> Sadly, "the one standard" doesn't seem to exist, and
> manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course,
> such a standard would have to be free and open, so any
> OS could implement it.

There you go putting restriction on how such an "standard" should be
implemented. I have a better idea. Why doesn't the *nix/*BSD {pick any
other letter combination that turns you on} agree to one uniform method
of implementing printer drivers and then let the manufacturers
implement it on their end. I have spoke to two company reps in the
past year, one regarding printers, and both stated outright that the
thought of writing and maintaining drivers on a multitude of platforms
scares them to death. The problem is not with the manufacturers but
rather with the fragmentation of the non-windows arena.

I remember when "Hayes" ruled the modem world. The "Hayes command set"
was the de facto standard. The along came U.S. Robotics and said, "Screw
you Hayes and your friggin command set. We can do it faster and better
without your crap." And, they did. The same can be said about Epson and
their printer command set. Hell, the list goes on and on. Today, PS or
PCL (there are strong supports on both sides of the aisle) might be
king, but what about tomorrow. Locking yourself into any technology is
suicide. Classical "Dinosaur Thinking" as it is referred to in the
business world. You do know what happened to those creatures when they
could not adapt don't you.

The fact that companies do not directly support *BSD, etcetera is not
news. The fact that FreeBSD does not support the technology that is
available (does the phase "N Protocol ring a bell") is the problem that
should be addressed. 

> There's a reason for that: Companies that develop
> printers want money. They need to continuously sell
> printers, and there's an ongoing "renewal" of hardware
> and software, e. g. new printer requires new OS, new
> OS requires new printer. This is done by planned
> obsolescense.

You can make that statement in regards to cars, airplanes, etcetera. It
is just an empty sound bite. By the way, since the days of DOS, I have
never purchased a printer that then required me to update my OS.

> Just imagine you had a printer that would work with
> any OS. First of all, you wouldn't buy a "Windows",
> so the deal between the manufacturer and MICROS~1
> would break: "We make our devices for your 'Windows',
> you tell us about your interfaces, and we make a
> driver for your current product." You would be able
> to use your printer with a free OS. Furthermore,
> if this free OS got updated, you would continue
> using your printer because the new OS would also
> support it, unlike "Windows" that would not have
> support for the printer anymore, encouraging you
> to buy a new one.

I have  the ability to use a driver from Win95 up to XP, and in a few
case even Vista. On the other hand, updating FreeBSD to a new major
version number and in the case of the nVidia display driver even a
minor number, causes me to force a rebuild of the system. Just for
clarification, a minor system update with nVidia only causes me to have
to rebuild that port. The same exists also for at least LSOF. There may
be more however.

At some point though support for anything will cease, unless you prefer
to live in the dinosaur age.

> On the other hand, this business model benefits the
> development of new technology (financed by unit
> sales), and making technology cheaper to purchase.

Business 101

I know dozens of college students that use inexpensive ink-jets
printers because the are:

1) inexpensive
2) easy to install

Trying to get an ink-jet printer to work on FreeBSD can be a whole new
experience in frustration. The manufacturers created a product to fit a
particular niche in the market place. The fact that FreeBSD cannot
accommodate that is a problem.

I just spent several hours trying to convert a linux printer driver to
work on FreeBSD. Of course, both platforms use a different hierarchy
which then requires me to attempt to manually modify the files to point
to the right location, etcetera. I still have not gotten it to work.
This is with only one driver on one PC. I can easily see why any
manufacturer would not want to be bothered with this bullshit.
Microsoft has used the same basic method for the installation of
printer drivers since Win95. However, you cannot even get Linux/*BSD,
etcetera to agree on a common, uniform hierarchy for and method of
implementing printer drivers. I couldn't care less if they used CUPS.
LPR or whatever just as long as they get a unified method in place.

If such a system were in place, there would be no problem in getting
developers to write the necessary drivers. Hell, if they did it right
they could use the Windows drivers. However, we both know that they
(the OS developers) would rather bite off their nose than do that out
of pure spite.


-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+fbsd at seibercom.net

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