[Tfug] LPD vs LPRng vs CUPS

[Predrag Punosevac]

I have no doubt that it just works for noobs on the single printer  
attached to a single computer.
That was exactly my experience.
But my feeling after playing with it that on the large network either just  
work or I would
be screwed as the configuration files are not recommended to be edited by  
hand.

Again I am not a professional system administrator and the fact that so  
many applications
require cups-base almost prevents you from using LPRng. If I am not  
mistaken you have to have clients
configured on every desktop and lprng daemon running. As LPRng installs in  
the same place as cups-base
the trouble is obvious. I do not know how would one deal with it from the  
top of my head.

You can tell people do not use Firefox of K3b because it needs cups-base  
and my printer server doesn't like it.
I honestly think that CUPS was a quick fix for Unix printing but it is not  
as well-thought as most people think.

Predrag







On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:33:49 -0700, Claude Rubinson  
<rubinson at u.arizona.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 02:42:46PM -0700, Ronald Sutherland wrote:
>> I haven't given printing much thought in may years, I found that the
>> Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) worked on Windows and *nix, CUPS auto
>> discovers the printer on a network and that was enough for me, its  
>> worked on
>> everything I've tried. HP networked printers all have IPP but it may  
>> need
>> enabled.
>
> I've heard enough people say "CUPS just works," to believe that is the
> experience of many.  But it hasn't been mine.  I suspect that it's not
> a coincidence that the network where I've had the most problems with
> CUPS is also particularly poorly designed with a myriad of funky,
> cheap print servers.
>
> And therein lies the rub.  Unix is famous for being flexible and
> powerful but scary to newbs.  ("Unix gives you enough rope to hang
> yourself.  And then a few feel more, just to be sure.)  Windows is
> famous for "it just works" -- unless it doesn't, in which case you're
> screwed.  The ideal user interface is one that "just works" but also
> allows the user complete flexibility to bend the app to their own
> needs.
>
> In esr's screed he talks about "feature orientations" vs "task
> orientations" (or some terminology like that) and argues that UI
> designers should emphasize tasks rather than features.  I disagree,
> the ideal app/documentation will do both: i.e., step you through all
> common tasks and ALSO give you a full syntax permitting you to bend
> the app to your will.  Perl + CPAN comes to mind.
>
> Eventually, I've always gotten CUPS configured to do what I need.  But
> inevitably, it's always taken longer than it did with lprng.
>
> Claude
>
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