cups, and hplip too, fail to recognize printer when I try to print

[Thomas Mueller]

> The problem has nothing to do with proprietary drivers, etcetera but rather
> the extremely fractured system of printing on non MS Windows based systems. I
> have had extensive conversations with representatives from Brother and while
> they do include PPD's and other assorted files for some of their printers,
> they claim it is just not financially feasible to do so for all their
> products, ie, scanners, copiers, etcetera due to the multiple platforms that
> they would be required to support. They need only support one when working
> with MS Windows, If the *nix community would come together and devise one
> consistent printing system, they would be inclined to support it. They
> informed me that due to the way FreeBSD likes to due things differently than
> anyone else, they would never in all likely hood support it directly. This is
> not a problem with the manufacturers, it is a fundamental flaw in the way
> *nix handles printers, copiers, FAX machines, scanners, etcetera.

> You might want to check out this URL:
> <http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting>

> Specifically this portion for starters:

> PDF is the standard print job format from CUPS 1.6.x on

> All important desktop applications (GTK/GNOME, Qt/KDE,
> LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, ...) send print jobs in PDF
> and not in PostScript any more by default. In addition, a complete CUPS
> filter chain to process print jobs in PDF is available and used.

> Carmel

I tried running the MS-Windows executable installer in Wine under NetBSD-current i386, but it did nothing at all.

Subsequently I tried mousing through Wine Explorer to get an idea of what it was like.  It seemed to get bogged down after a short time, long file names were truncated, and it subsequently went into a reboot (crash), file system not cleanly dismounted.

So it looks like this wine is unstable; I could try in FreeBSD-current i386 and amd64 after I get that built.

But I really think I need to build/install a Linux system.

It would be helpful if a laser printer/all-in-one would support a standard print file format/interface, like PDF, instead of having their own proprietary PCL.

Then such a printer might work in Linux and BSD even without a specific driver.  Or am I wrong?

Then printing would work even without a specific driver, even from Haiku.

I looked at the web link, had to remove < at the beginning and > at the end to make it work.

Yes, Unix/quasi-Unix is an anarchy regarding printing interface.

HP provided hplip, which can be seen either as an indication that they are helpful to Linux, or as a red flag that their printer interfaces are proprietary and that only their software will work.

So now I view hplip as a red flag and intend not to buy anything further from HP, printer or otherwise.

Tom