Subject: printing in debian/unix is hard...

From: Carlos Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 17:51 EST

I've already sent several bits of my printing tale. Here's the whole
story...

I discovered a few problems with apsfilter, as I already reported.
Then I found that dvilj wouldn't take a dvi file from stdin, as
required for automatic formatting so that you can just do
lpr -Pprinter file.dvi.

And now I tried to make automatic font generation work with the
MakeTeX{PK,MF} scripts. After the above fixes we get the following on
the remote machine:

lpd - apsfilter - dviljk - MakeTeXPK - mf - MakeTeXMF -
wierd error "no more child processes" comming apparently from
MakeTeXMF *SIGH*.

I then tried a radical solution: I linked /bin/sh to zsh beta 18
instead of bash, and VOILA it works! If the bash maintainer wants I
can send more details. I vote for just dumping it :-)

I also reported a bad bug with lpr, which won't let someone remove a
print job on a remote printer. I expect to send a patch soon.

Moral: if you want to have smart printing, use window$ :-( :-( :-(

Carlos

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 19:20 EDT

Carlos> Moral: if you want to have smart printing, use window$ :-( :-( :-(

Narrr. I am quite happy with one simple entry in /etc/printcap, plus one
gs_filter. All I print is in postscript (generated by genscript or dvipsk)
and printed via gs. That I can simply say "print" in any application
program. 
                             
--
Dirk Eddelb"uttel                             http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/~edd

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From: George Bonser <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 20:48:50 -0700

> and printed via gs. That I can simply say "print" in any application

I have found that magicfilter is pretty handy for this stuff. It works for
all kinds of files, not just ps, plus it figures the file format and decides
how to make your printer print it on the fly.

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From: [email-masked] (Heiko Schlittermann)
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 08:31:00 +0200 (MET DST)

[email-masked] wrote:
: 
: 
:   Carlos> Moral: if you want to have smart printing, use window$ :-( :-( :-(
: 
: Narrr. I am quite happy with one simple entry in /etc/printcap, plus one
: gs_filter. All I print is in postscript (generated by genscript or dvipsk)
: and printed via gs. That I can simply say "print" in any application
: program. 

Same for me.  I use a self written simple input filter (perl) to
distinguish:

        o ordinary postscript (starting with %!)        -> gs -> stdout

        o postscript from windo$ (starting with ^D%!)   -> gs -> stdout

        o all other input                               -> stdout

and ONE corresponding entry in my /etc/printcap plus one
/etc/printfilter.conf.

If interested, I could send it to you.  But beware, it's not intended
for automatic installation, you need to think about some options and
file locations.  But iff installed it works almost ever (for me since
its installation) automagically.

It follows the ``keep it small and beautiful'' strategy.  So all user
requested formatting is left to the user 
(such as a2ps, psnup, dvips, ...).  We print postscript or ``direct'',
nothing else.

Heiko
public pgp : finger [email-masked]
fingerprint: A1 7D F6 7B 69 73 48 35  E1 DE 21 A7 A8 9A 77 92

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From: Carlos Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 96 09:44 EST

>and printed via gs. That I can simply say "print" in any application

I don't mean that literally. I'm just fed up of the bugs in the
printing subsystem. I'm also having problems with lpd complaining on
valid printcap files :-( I'll try to track this...

However, automatic printing in unix IS HARD. Well, it's hard in any
case ue to the diversity of file formats and printers, but in window$
it's easy to configure.

The quick solution of one gs filter is far too restrict. It only fits
a domestic installation. I know about smart filters, that's why I'm
using apsfilter. It's more flexible than magicfilter, btw. The config
problems appear when you have several printers (I have 4 different
ones) and/or you don't want to only print postscript. Even when it's
possible to have a ps, it's not always the best thing. For example,
it's stupid to convert a dvi to ps when you have a direct dvi->printer
converter.

I have however a more fundamental objection to the unix print model.
It's not good for modern printers that have many configuration
options, like color/mono, paper/transparency, high/low resolution,
econo mode, etc. The number of alternatives is so big that you need a
graphic or menu interface to configure it for each print job.
Separating the options in different queues is not feasible because you
need to have tens of them. And the configuration interface must be
available from the print menu of every application and from the
command line. It surely can be done, but I've never heard of it.

Carlos

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From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 00:37:08 +0200

> command line. It surely can be done, but I've never heard of it.

If you use a PS printer (or gs) consider trying the psptools package
when it will be available, and use a PPD file which describes your
printer's capacities.

Yves.

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From: [email-masked] (Winfried Truemper)
Date: 7 Jun 1996 10:34:00 GMT

Carlos Carvalho ([email-masked]) wrote:

: using apsfilter. It's more flexible than magicfilter, btw. The config

Please explain this. Last time I used "apsfilter", it was horrible to set
up (that was more than 1 year ago).

Winfried