LWN put my printing summit
notes atop the development news
section. Whee!
Robert sent me some additions for the vendor relations
discussion part which I'll incorporate at some point.
Lexmark has asked me to review and comment on a printer.
This is a fine thing, all in all, but they wish to use my
comments in their ads. It seems appropriate for me to
charge
them for that privilege; they are evidently pondering that
idea.
Mulad
pondered the whole printing thing a bit:
I mean, I don't want to define
a new printer in /etc/printcap just to be able
to run at a different resolution or to print in color or
whatever. This is something that has been
missing for a long time. Of course, what's the best way to
do this? You don't want every program that wants
to print to be dependent upon a particular graphical
widget...
So the approach currently used is to provide a defined
interface between the spooler and print submission program,
which includes data about the possible options. Currently,
this interface is done in two parts: typically PPD files
document the
options, and job submission programs magically know how to
specify options to the spooler (arguably, this is OK, since
there are only 6 or so spoolers in the world). This
approach is sligthly inelegant and not commonly used, but
all the bits are
there, so it's up to you to install it. Read
the HOWTO.
(Or rather, read the not-yet-published version of the HOWTO
that has more data on this stuff).
I don't want more printers to be using proprietary
languages...device manufacturers don't know how to make a
`driver' for Ghostscript...
None of us like proprietary languges. Truth be told,
however, most proprietary languages are little more than a
few setup bytes and a compressed stream of bits indicating
how to
fire the jets. At the summit we clarified the needs of free
software; since all the magic is in the dithering, and we
can already do that, we may now see some vendors document
the jet-firing information we need. As for Ghostscript, it
does indeed have a collection of awkwardnesses that will
probably be addressed in future versions. There's a
sourceforge project for that; join and help.
I wonder if there are yet any programs for reading the
status of
my Epson Stylus Color 640. I'd kind of like to
know how much ink is left.
Yes. Basic tools for that sort of thing are included with
recent versions of the Gimp print plugin (aka the "stp"
driver). It lives on SourceForge.
Sigh. I've really got to get around to some more work on
the database and HOWTO...
My father in law is visiting; we're planning to eat out for
the next five dozen meals. Urgh.
Yesterday I accidentally released a two foot snake in
the locker room at the gym. Oops. Apparently he crawled
into my bag when it was stored in the basement, and I never
noticed until I unpacked to get dressed. Fortunately 3Com
has a staff of comparatively expendable security guards
useful for snake
trapping and the like. Kelley won't go into the basement
anymore.