[cups.general] driver selection for epson stylus cx6600

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

On Jul 21 20:30 Matthew Monaco wrote (excerpt):
> I've always been confused about which driver to choose for my Epson Stylus
> CX6600. When adding the printer I'm usually presented with (excluding the
> simplified versions):
>
> Epson Stylus CX6600 Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs (currently v5.2)
> Epson Stylus CX6600 CUPS+Gutenprint (currently v5.2.7)
>
> furthermore, there are usually multiple copies for the CUPS+Gutenprint driver.
>
> What's the difference here? Is this the correct place to ask?

In this case it seems it is the same driver (Gutenprint version 5.2.x)
but the actual driver is run via different ways, one via Foomatic,
and one as native CUPS driver.

For more information have a look at the section
"The Filter (includes the Driver)" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell
For more details you may have a look at
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Information_for_Printer_Manufacturers_Regarding_Linux_Support

Probably a better place to get information regarding various drivers is
http://www.openprinting.org

In general regarding various drivers you may have a look at the section
"Non-PostScript printers, GhostScript, and Foomatic" in
http://dev.linuxfoundation.org/~till/printing-tutorial/tut.html
which is linked as "Browse the tutorial online" in
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/database/cupsprintingtutorial

In particular for an "Epson Stylus CX6600" see
http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Epson/Epson-Stylus_CX6600

For an "Epson Stylus CX6600" only the Gutenprint driver is listed at
OpenPrinting.org (which does not mean that no other driver may also work).

Usually there is neither such a thing as "the one and only driver"
nor is there such a thing as "the best driver" for a particular printer.
The better the printer hardware is, the more different drivers are available,
where each driver is best for a particular use-case.
For example a PostScript+PCL color laser printer could be operated as
- generic PostScript printer using a generic PostScript PPD
- model-specific PostScript printer using a model-specific PostScript PPD
- monochrome PCL printer using various PPDs for various monochrome PCL drivers
- color PCL printer using a PPD for a color PCL driver
Printing via a PCL driver is usually faster but with less quality
than printing in PostScript mode and using a monochrome PCL driver
is probably the best way to enforce fast and monochrome-only printing.

Regarding "PPD", you may have a look at the section "PPD Files" in
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
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