On Fri, Aug 23, 2002 at 12:38:02PM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote: > Does OOo link to the CUPS API via -lcups[image]? If so, all information > that's available via a BSD command should be more easily obtainable from > the CUPS API, since that's how the commands in cupsys-bsd get them. > Thus, the requirement to use spadmin without cupsys-bsd is very strange; > why they wouldn't make calls to CUPS to autodetect printers is beyond > me. No, it doesn't link to CUPS directly - hopefully it will one day. > If OOo doesn't link in the CUPS API, then it should be pulling printer > info by executing print programs. In that capacity, I would expect lpr > or lprng to be equivalent to cupsys-bsd for all intents and purposes. > Moreover, cupsys-bsd wouldn't be just recommended for printing via OOo; > it would be required. Well, it's not required because the alternative way to set up printers is via the padmin tool. This allows you to define any printer, select the driver and enter a suitable command line to use the printer. lpr/lprng _is_ equivalent to cupsys-bsd from an administration point of view; the problem is it is not obvious from a users' POV that cupsys-bsd is a better alternative to using the padmin tool. If a user has lpr or lprng installed, they will find that OOo finds their print queues without needing to do anything extra. If, on the other hand, they installed cupsys but not cupsys-bsd and they don't read the README they won't realise that there are two ways to print (install cupsys-bsd or use oopadmin), and are most likely to use oopadmin instead, which is much more complicated and error-prone. The Suggests is just an extra hint from us - if they are reviewing the Suggests for OOo and have cupsys installed they'll probably realise that the suggested package is a good idea. > The other possibility is that OOo can recognize SysV printing systems > and use them, but can't autodetect the available queues via SysV only. > That also seems strange, for the same reason as the CUPS API case is > strange: you can get that information just as easily with SysV commands. OOo actually uses SysV commands to get the information somehow. > No, I would imagine not. My main point, though, is that OOo shouldn't > be print-system-specific if at all possible. It isn't it is just supposed to be a helpful hint, but there isn't a Hint: field :) > > What if I changed it to Suggests: cupsys-bsd | lpr? I know it not strictly > > necessary to include cupsys-bsd, but many users of OOo+CUPS have not realised > > that OOo printing is so much easier if it is installed and I would like to > > continue to convey the hint to those people. > > I'm not sure. If the Suggests: cupsys-bsd is truly a CUPS-only > requirement, and other print spoolers are picked up OK, then the current > relationship is probably correct. As I mentioned above, though, it's a > very curious limitation. No limitation, just a hint. :) > You might want to rely on the Suggests that's already in cupsys for > cupsys-bsd. (I just noticed that I need to add an equivalent Suggests > to cupsys-client, so you can rely on that Suggests even though it > doesn't exist yet. :-) But that's your call to make. It is another level of suggests away, and users won't necessarily make the connection unless they read the README. Chris
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