[cups.general] HELP! I'm rewriting the CUPS Manuals!

[David Schlenk]

I don't think I'd be alone in wishing there was some kind of "Learn 
CUPS by example" type document, similar to the really good samba book 
that you can read for free at
http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/

One thing that does well is acknowledge that you will need to use other 
bits of software in order to accomplish many of the common desired 
tasks. It would be nice if CUPS documentation did this as well, and 
mentioned things like "there are a few different distributions 
ghostscript, here are the advantages of each, and oh by the way most 
people use X, but Apple decided to go with Y with their CUPS 
distribution".  Also a blurb on foomatic and gimp-print and the role of 
each in the user's quest to get their $50 inkjet printer to do 
something useful.

Most people's frustration with CUPS seems to stem from a lack of step 
by step examples of what you can do with it. Like you said, "CUPS 
provides limitless possibilities," but for many, all that it is good 
for is opening up port 631 to the world and getting their printer to 
spit out raw postscript code.

You could cover examples like:

* You have a linux desktop computer and a printer that doesn't speak 
PS. Here are the things that you will need to research and do in order 
to get it to work.

* You have a small office with a few networked printers that some folks 
(who all run windows) need to print to.

* You have a large office with a lot of printers that folks on windows, 
unix and mac os need to print to, authenticated, and with (reliable) 
page accounting.

* You have many large offices with many printers at each location, and 
you need to be able to print from unix, windows and mac clients, and do 
print accounting, and downtime is not an option (redundancy).

On Feb 7, 2005, at 3:12 PM, Steven Sweet wrote:

> I’m redoing all of the CUPS documentation for 1.2. What was the most 
> important information needed to set up your printing system? What kind 
> of system set-up did you have? I’m looking to write  
> “friendlier” documentation. Any suggestions would be greatly 
> appreciated. CUPS provides limitless possibilities. What is most 
> important to you? How do you want it presented?
> _______________________________________________
> cups mailing list
> cups at easysw.com
> http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
>
--
David Schlenk
Operating Systems Analyst
Bethel University
Saint Paul, Minnesota
david-schlenk at bethel.edu