Re: Why CUPS?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> CUPS, install LPRng and configure it to work.  But what is interesting
>> is that LPRng proved better for a network printer than CUPS: its lpq
>> command does what it is supposed to by showing me the printer queue
>> status and not merely the local queue status.  lprm also works out of
>> the box.

I agree that LPRng's model makes more sense when used on network
printers (all my printers are networked).

>> While it possible that I wasn't using CUPS correctly (I tried!), I
>> clearly can use LPRng with far less effort.  I wonder then why Debian
>> prefers to bundle CUPS as its default print spooler?

IIUC the main feature of CUPS is that it lets client applications get
a description of the printer's features, so they can give you a nice GUI
widget to let you choose simplex/duplex, draft/quality, photo-paper,
color/b&w, ...

It's really sad that we can't have both.


        Stefan