rcrsn51 wrote:8Geee wrote:For puppy --> Printers there has been FOO for several years. Foo works fairly well for most newer LJ and IJ Printers. (I use LJ due to mostly paperwork, as opposed to artistry). Foo is not usually bulky, and has packages tailored to certain brands. JMH2c
Please explain. To what driver package are you referring?
Well Cups is the printer driver for example v. 1.4.6 or 1.4.8, FOO is a "package", there are several of these, i.e. xqz, and zjs that "patch" Cups to the particular (and in some cases near-proprietary) vendor driver(s) required. "How to connect Printer to Puppy" IS a bit long-winded, but really is neceessary. Vendors, and their models and family of printers/print-scan-fax, etc gets very specific and complicated.
Ultimately, part of the blame points to the top of the pyramid so to speak, as the drivers are by design specific. From what I've seen, there are great efforts made to get the "system" to work in open-source. Different brands have different drivers... and within each brand there may be quite a few different drivers. Each driver works with a differrent series/family/group of printers, including Lazer and Ink, scanner, etc.
Edit:mikeb makes a salient point here that hplip is a humongous beast. And thats just one vendor. HP --> CUPS --> FOO tackles this rather well I think.Puppy Linux in general does a good job as I see it from my own perspective. YRMV. I don't know about CUPS 1.5, and I'm the type of person that sticks to "what works".