Re: oo should Suggest lpr, not cupsys-bsd

[Sven LUTHER <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2002 at 08:33:35PM +0200, Chris Halls wrote:
> 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.

So we need conditional dependencies (of the kind, if the lpr virtual
package is cups, then we depend on cupsys-bsd or something such) :))))

Friendly,

Sven Luther