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Re: Printers using free software only



Le mercredi 25 juillet 2012 à 21:34 +0100, Brian a écrit :
> On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 23:23:14 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> 
> > On Mi, 25 iul 12, 21:18:19, Brian wrote:
> > > On Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 18:02:11 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Lu, 23 iul 12, 18:05:45, Brian wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > All the major applications on the popular DEs are now geared up to
> > > > > output in PDF format when printing.
> > > > 
> > > > PDF is kind of a subset of PostScript ;)
> > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf#PostScript
> > > 
> > > An interesting perspective but how does that connect with the assertion
> > > that
> > > 
> > > > . . . Linux applications generally output Postscript when printing. ?
> > > 
> > > I'll rephrase what I said previously:
> > > 
> > > No major application on the popular DEs outputs PostScript when printing.
> > 
> > I was trying to point out that a PS printer is also a PDF printer.
> 
> Are you using the word 'printer' to refer to the actual physical machine
> which does the printing or are you using it as a shorthand for 'printer
> queue' or 'print queue'?
> 
> 
I might have totally missed the point: I am by no way a printer* guru,
but I have yet to see someone do a
cat file.ps > /dev/lpr0 (or whatever)
to print a file.

What the guy wanted was just to be sure that in 5-10 years, his printer
would still work even if the blobs were not to be released anymore.

Three goods points were raised:
1) Postscript printers (advertised so) are great in that regard because
they only need a PPD (ASCII) file to work. This is not the only way to
be sure the printer will work in 10 years but this is the easiest (BTW,
I have never heard of someone complaining because some binary blobs for
his printer were not available anymore...).
2) Even with open source drivers, you cannot control the firmware of the
printer: some printers are programmed to force you to visit your
reseller once in a while for "maintenance" or just stop working.
3) CUPS is most certainly what will be used to manage the queue and talk
to the printer. CUPS will translate everything that is sent to it to
some dialect the printer can understand.

Am I wrong somewhere? Did I overlooked something important here?


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