Re: [tlug] Okay... wow. Ubuntu just impressed me greatly.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:
 > 2008/9/23 Godwin Stewart <gstewart@example.com>:
 > 
 > > Since Apple have had a hand in CUPS, things do seem to have progressed
 > > fantastically in that area, I agree.
 > 
 > Maybe we should change its name to *Can* Usually Print Stuff. ;)

Maybe, but that's not really where the credit is due IMHO (I've been
struggling for weeks now with Canon -- don't touch, it ain't worth it,
they do not have a clue -- and Epson printers), and I wouldn't give
Apple all that much credit, except for its market power -- Microsoft
is undoubtedly more important here.  What's really happening is that
there are now semi-standard protocols for identifying printers.

The CUPS people are clearly dolts, though.  Read "man 7 filter" and
weep (if you don't get it the first time, watch for what happens to
argv[0]).

Epson, BTW, deserves credit for providing a GPLed implementation of
(parts of) its ESCP2 protocol.  Of course, the Epson code sucks badly
(I don't care if it's a specialized filter called "only" from a
daemon, segfaulting during argument processing is dain bramaged.)

Epson does deserve a loud razzberry for screwing over the native
customers.  Going to their Japanese drivers page found only Windows
(back to "ME"!) and Mac drivers.  I found out about the Linux drivers
by reading Matz's page (Google keiyuu, of course), then searching for
pipslite.  Looking to the English URL I found, I realized the host was
.co.jp (turns out to be Epson keiretsu, but that's not obvious from
the name) and the top of the path was /en/.  Subtract out the /en and
voila!

Welcome to Japan!  :-(