Re: any advice before I buy a printer for FreeBSD?

[Lin Jianfong]

Try to avoid any so-called "winprinters", i.e. the one that rely specifically on the existence of Microsoft Windows OS to function. One good example of "winprinters" are some of the older HP series printers that uses Performance Printing Architecture (PPA), in which case much of the computational ability of the printer is being relegated to the OS instead of being done by the printer internally, much like "dumb" terminals. Although thru the use of special filters, and there's such filter, you can set up "winprinters" to function with FreeBSD, that's highly not recommended.

As for printing batches and batches of PDF files, set up apsfilter on your printer, and write a script that automates the printing job, set up the printing daemon lpd to handle the job priorities, spooling, etc. The FreeBSD handbook described how to do all these tasks in great details. I assume you know at least some shell scriptings if you're using FreeBSD. X11 AcroReader is only needed when you need to view the PDF files without printing them.

And, the most important of all, check the hardware compatibility list of printers suitable for FreeBSD.

Fong

From: BSD baby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: any advice before I buy a printer for FreeBSD?
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 19:45:20 -0800

Any advice before I buy a printer for FreeBSD?

I'm finally going to get a printer for my FreeBSD devbox this week.

Are they all pretty much FreeBSD-compatible?
or is there some spec I need to look for?

I assume parallel port is still the way to go
or is USB really ready on FreeBSD?

Main thing I want to do is print PDF files, in batches.
(Send a directory of 300 different PDF files to the printer at once.)

Are there any command-line tools to do that?
or do you need an X11 Adobe Acrobat app?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks!


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