[cups.general] CUPS is unusable

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 27 January 2006 23:11, Anonymous wrote:
>My career started with Microsoft XENIX.  Give you some idea of how
> long I've been around Unices?
>
>So...my impression of CUPS?  If CUPS were to be listed in a software
> dictionary, there would only be one synonym: "clusterf**k".
>

Now now.

>Now, mind you, this is just an impression.  For all I know, the
> underlying software may, for all I know, be amazingly elegant. 

It is in fact pretty darned good when combined with gimp-print or 
gutenprint, gimp-prints new name, and decent printers like Epson or the 
better HP's.

> However, the "CUPS experience" has been so miserable that I would
> never know it.

Have you pointed a browser at (assuming httpd is running) localhost:631?
There you will find all the facilities needed to configure and test cups 
quite thoroughly.  And it is, after you get used to it, pretty straight 
forward to do.

>Unfortunately, "how in the world could anyone design such a poor
> system" is very much within my imagination - it's when someone has an
> excellent idea backed up with (possibly) a great deal of expertise
> coupled with a complete lack of understanding with how people work.
>
>So, will I master CUPS?  Only as much as I have to to get things to
> work - and with CUPS, that means becoming pretty adept at a lot of
> nonsense.

Nope, wrong attitude, that will never get you comfortable with it.  Once 
you get a feel for it, you'll find yourself doing things you may not 
have thought would be so easy to do, but they are.

>PS
>Sadly, some of the latest Linuxes don't seem to offer any
> old-fashioned "lpr" methods anymore.  "lpr" still could present
> technical challanges - but it didn't have any pretense about being
> usr-freindly...and you could write a bunch of scripts and/or html
> cgi's to let a regular user administer it (try that with CUPS!).

The Cups std install, fwiw, does contain an lpr, which if the default 
printer is set, works very transparently, and much like the lpr of old, 
only with far fewer warts.  But you don't use lpr to configure, you use 
the web server built into cups <http://localhost:631> to do that.

I use cups here, in a 3 machine home network, and when its been 
configured all 3 of the machines have access to the printer, which is 
actually setup as 4 printers.  They are all the same Epson C82, now a 
bit geriatric, with each "printer" set for a different resolution from 
a quick draft print to full photographic quality.  I just printed a 65 
page document that lives on the shop box, sitting high on a shelf out 
in my workshop where that box normally drives a small milling machine, 
with only 2-3 seconds more lag in getting the job started than if I'd 
printed it from this box.  ssh'd into it from here where its nice and 
comfy, out there its about 25 degrees ATM.

Give cups a chance, it genuinely is a better way, or linux wouldn't have 
deprecated lprNG years ago.  Having lost the battles with lprNG several 
times in the early years, I really appreciate the stability cups has 
brought to my printing here.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.