Re: Why use COPS?
Anthony Campbell <ac@acampbell.org.uk> writes:
> A preliminary attempt to set up CUPS was rather demanding and I'm
> wondering if there is much point on a single-user system. Most of my
> printing is quite straightforward (plain text and only occasional
> images) and it works well with apsfilter or magicfilter, so is there any
> reason to spend several hours trying to get CUPS to work? Any
> significant advantage with that system?
I experienced the converse.
I had a lot of trouble with lpd and lprng (along with magicfilter,
etc.) so I tried CUPS at work and was printing (to a network printer)
in minutes. It was refreshingly easy.
I only have a single printer at home, and again, I was printing to
that in minutes too. Now, granted, it's an HP OfficeJet, so I later
spent some time with the hpijs driver and hpoj server to improve the
quality of the printing (and to work the scanner). The biggest
downside was that I also had to learn foomatic to compile a new PPD
file (and filed a bug that the generation of the PPD file should be
automatic, or at least that foomatic-compiledb should be run to build
all of the PPD files when the package is installed so that one sees
all of the printers in the menu). But the cupsomatic-ppd package
includes a LOT of PPD files which are installed in the right place
(/usr/share/cups/model) so some might find that easier to use.
While you might have just one printer, you may access it in different
ways. The web interface makes it easy for me to create different
printer queues for single-sided printing, double-sided printing,
toggled printing (double-sided the way the county likes it), color
photos, etc. I never did figure out how to enable the double-sided
printing at all with magicfilter.
I found CUPS to be much easier, and much more powerful, than the
alternatives.
--
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com> http://www.newt.com/wohler/ GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
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