Bug#694945: foomatic: cannot get PPD for Canon-PIXMA-iP3000 and many others
On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 10:23:23AM +0000, Roger Leigh wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 03, 2012 at 08:38:17PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 03, 2012 at 12:49:53AM +0000, Roger Leigh wrote:
> > > On Sun, Dec 02, 2012 at 04:45:07PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> > > > Package: foomatic-db-engine
> > > > Version: 4.0.8-3
> > > > Severity: normal
> > > >
> > > > There are apparently 3 CUPS drivers in Debian for the Pixma iP3000:
> > > >
> > > > gutenprint.5.2://bjc-PIXMA-iP3000/expert
> > > > foomatic:Canon-PIXMA-iP3000-gutenprint-ijs.5.2.ppd
> > > > foomatic:Canon-PIXMA-iP3000-gutenprint-ijs-simplified.5.2.ppd
> > >
> > > I have no idea why CUPS is using foomatic drivers here.
> > > The native CUPS driver is preferred.
> >
> > It was a test I wanted to do, to check if the foomatic one would
> > support features not found in the gutenprint one (notably head cleaning)
>
> It's exactly the same driver, just using the foomatic/ijsgutenprint/ijs/gs
> workflow instead of the native CUPS driver. It's really only useful for
> people using non-CUPS spoolers like LPRng. It would be much less effort
> for the other spoolers to just support using CUPS filters! The foomatic
> stuff for gutenprint appears to break reasonably often--at least, that's
> the impression I get from the bug reports.
Ah ok.
[somewhat off-topic wrt to the bug subject] Maybe there could be some
way to make this more obvious at first sight - I mean even if the
foomatic-based chain gets removed from CUPS, if it stays for other
spoolers maybe some wordings could be improved to make it clear they
are not completely different (eg. so people not entirely satisfied
with the cups driver don't go configuring lprng to check whether the
foomatic driver is any better).
Maybe what's missing would be something like identifying in driver
package descriptions what protocol is used to talk to those drivers,
maybe what other packages ship the same drivers for a different
protocol (if such a situation exists), and identifying protocol
adapters as such ? I admit I'm a bit lost between foomatic-db (which
advertises working with CUPS, but if I understand you well should
usually not be chosen for this use case), openprinting-ppds (which
tells when you don't need the package but not when you need it), and
printer-driver-* (not all of which tell they target CUPS). Ugh :)
> > Well, I can't tell if there are printers for which they are useful.
> > But there are definitely things that could be improved, like making
> > sure drivers for a single printer sort close enough in the list :)
>
> I thought that it was ordered by manufacturer/model, with the
> driver in parentheses following (at least in the web UI).
There are different separators (spaces fro gutenprint vs. hyphens for
foomatic ones), which cause them to be grouped separately.
ie. "Canon PIXMA iP3000 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.9"
"Canon PIXMA iP3100 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.9"
...
"Canon PIXMA MX ..."
...
then only after many more lines:
...
"Canon PIXMA-iP3000 Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs.5.2"
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