[gentoo-amd64] Re: *big* printing problem (solved)

[Duncan]

Thierry de Coulon posted <200602190816.47048.tcoulon@××××××××.ch>,
excerpted below,  on Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:16:46 +0100:

> On Sunday 19 February 2006 00.05, Paolo Ripamonti wrote:
>
>> http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
>> Gimp-print is a collection of printing drivers.
>> AFAIK KDE has its own drivers.
>> My two cents.
>
> That's the way I used to undestand it but... here at least it does NOT print
> without gimp-print, so if it has it's own drivers somehow emerge kde did not
> install them !?

For those who just want to get it done, see the bottom...

...

Actually, as with sound, KDE has its own framework, but that framework is 
in turn designed to work with whatever backend may be installed.  In many
cases, that's CUPS (Common Unix Printing System, basically a network
print server setup, tho it can be used on a local-only system if desired),
which itself is just a middle layer, depending on actual print drivers of
some sort or another, varying depending on the actual printer and print
drivers in use.

Taking it from the other end (and as I understand it after a bit of
reading...):

There are two types of Unixy print drivers actually available for Linux,
the GimpPrint drivers -- which like GTK, the Gimp Toolkit, can and are
used by all sorts of other apps as well, and Postscript/Ghostscript based
printing.  In both cases, what's actually happening is that Gimpprint or
Ghostscript is a common layer, with a lot of mini-plugin drivers for
individual printers that plug-in to that common layer.

CUPS (and there's another one that slips my mind at the moment that's
parallel to CUPS but generally local-only) knows how to interface with
both Gimpprint and Ghostscript style print drivers, but it's network aware
and can also interface with MSWormOS print drivers made available over the
appropriate SMB/SAMBA protocol, if there are any such animals on the LAN.

KDE in turn has its own print system that includes a CUPS configurator,
but can also talk to SAMBA printers directly thru KDE's support of that
protocol, and probably others, too.  As  it happens, however, many
distributions simply setup CUPS to manage things, so the KDE CUPS
configurator works quite well both working with these systems and
configuring them, and that's one of the simpler ways to set things up from
KDE, even if it's not the most technically direct, in many cases.

...

As it happens, one of the open source community bigwigs (Eric Raymond or
Bruce Perens I believe, sometimes I mix the two up and I can't remember
which it was in this case) authored an essay on the troubles he had
setting up printing on his system -- saying if he had to go thro all
those unintuitive even for him after all those years steps  to get it
to work, what chance does a newbie have?  The column rightly made some
pretty big waves, because it's all too true... and arguably, some of the
newer hand-holding aka controlling binary distribs like UBUNTU have made
big progress in the area, but it's unfortunately still a big issue for
many.

...

OK, this is the "get it done" section I mentioned at the top:

Gentoo is famous within the community for its good documentation.  If you
are having a problem getting something like this to work, CHECK THE GENTOO
DOCUMENTATION LIST!!  Surprisingly frequently, there'll be either
something that directly covers the issue, or at least something covering
some aspect of it as it might apply differently to Gentoo.

Here's the big Gentoo documentation list.  Bookmark it, and be ready to go
to it when needed and do a "find" on whatever you are interested in:

Gentoo Documentation Resources List (English):
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/list.xml

As it happens, a find on "print" immediately hits pay dirt!

Gentoo Printing Guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/printing-howto.xml

Hey, what can I say?  It worked here!  That's how I have a working printer
(or did before I sold it used, as I seldom use it, and will upgrade if I
decide I need one).

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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