PPD generation on the fly

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Till Kamppeter wrote:
> Johannes Meixner wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > from a printer manufacturer I got the following information
> > (at the moment anonymized)

Johannes got that from me.  EPSON AVASYS Corporation releases Linux drivers for EPSON printers, scanners and all-in-ones.

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> > "ACME PrintSystem" is developed with the purpose of providing
> > a general purpose, model independent driver.
> > To this end, the driver queries the printer directly for its
> > capabilities and creates an optimized PPD file based on the
> > printer's reply.
> > This way it is no longer necessary to download and install
> > drivers when the user changes or adds new printers.
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > [snip]
>
> With CUPS 1.2 it is no problem, as it supports dynamic PPD generation.
> It only needs a PPD generator in /usr/lib/cups/driver/, where the PPD
> generator has the command line options "list" to list all PPDs which it
> is capable to generate and "cat <PPD name>" to actually generate one of
> the PPDs announced by the the call with "list".
>
> [snip detailed explanation of how this works]
> I hope this is exactly what you need.

Sure looks like it.  Thanks for kicking us in the right direction ;-)
--
Olaf Meeuwissen                          EPSON AVASYS Corporation, SE1
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