On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 12:09:20AM -0600, Jonathan Drews wrote: > On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 06:03:05AM +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 08:06:07AM +0200, Jonathan Drews wrote: > > > Hi Folks: I need some recommendations on what brand of printers will > > > work > > > with Ghostscript (Postscript). The cartridges for my 15 year old HP [...] > > > > I am not sure why you want to avoid CUPS. > > I have had difficulty getting cups to work in the past. I am just a simple > desktop user, so I really don't have a great grasp of computer > fundamentals. That begs the question as to why a desktop user would > use a complicated system like OpenBSD. Short answer: [...]
Overally, I agree with your opinions except with that saying that OpenBSD is complicated. But it may be subjective. Try to imagine someone who wants to change wheels in a big truck, in a middle of a desert, with his bare hands (because the lousy car maker gave no tools). This is how my experiences with Windows were so far and *this* was complicated. > I never could get CUPS working in previous versions of OpenBSD. > Also, IIRC CUPS requires chown and chmod to certain /dev files. I am > loathe to do that. I really don't want to mess with root file > permissions. IMHO, if you need a service, then add your account to > the appropriate group in /etc/groups. > [...] > > > According to Xerox's web page on Postscript, they claim that > Postscript gives higher quality renderings: > > "Unlike PCL, PostScript is device independent. This means that the [...] > device. Specifically, the graphic objects will be consistent and in > some cases of higher quality than PCL." I smell marketing, unless they can show some examples which do not look like being specially crafted to prove their case. Of course, there might be differences - each time one wants to simulate a continuous line from square/round dots, there was plenty of research that went into achieving this illusion to satisfy the eye and I expect each of the great printer companies to have some patented algorithms of achieving the goal. But, since they are in the game for many decades, I expect the results to be comparable. Ok, so to sum up, so far you are ok with quality of your printer, just not so happy with Windows side? My own experience with CUPS was only so-so. About 7-10 years ago I connected my old (by then) HPDJ 840C and things did not work. So I mangled system a bit: I assumed one of the previous HPDJs was close relative to mine, copy-pasted description of either 630 or 620c (sumthing like this) and changed names to 840c (and maybe I changed some more, I really do not remember, it should be in old config files). From what I remember, CUPS caught up even though I was never sure why. Perhaps I had to resign from using the highest dot density supported by 840, but this was not a big deal since I wanted economic print, so I used 300 and 150dpi and dithering, rather than more dpis and full ink. So, CUPS worked for me, after a while. However, I am not sure if I would be able to help with setting it up - a year ago my twenty years old dj went into cartoon box (inks and printing heads - they were mostly ok but ink replacement dried up and I only printed once or twice a month, each time having to unmount the cartridge and wash heads in sumthin (sometimes isopropanol, sometimes lcd cleaner, which ever was at hand). The CUPS side, however, once it was up, it stood up, so I cannot complain. And it has got nice www interface, allowing me to set up few virtual printers (say, one for color print, one for 300dpi, and so on). But, it could probably be set up without CUPS. Perhaps you can arrange things so that you can try whichever printer works for you and is supported on OBSD, and compare same printed pages with whatever the bestest print thing there is in a nearby print shop? >From my experience (in my city and country) such shops are located near universities and cater to students, so they must be affordable. Chances are, the personnel will happily voice their opinions on the subject (just like any other opinion, incl mine, apply salt, especially that they may sell printers, too). -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
