Hi All,
So far I've received only a handful of reports on people's experiences with CUPS on OS/2 which I find somewhat surprising and frustrating given how critical this is to making our beloved platform viable into the future in terms of printing support.
I thought I'd try and answer a few questions that i'm guessing people might have.
What is CUPS? Cups Is basically a framework that translates postscript data into a printers native format using Gutenprint and Ghostscript then sends it to the printer. It is the printing system used on Mac OSX and most linux distros. [Moderator note: CUPS is so important to Apple that they actually bought the rights to it and not only pay to maintain it now, but have kept it open source.]
Why is it important for OS/2? IBM used to update the omni drivers to support 'consumer' types printers but these updates stopped some years ago. it is now near impossible to find an affordable printer that will work with OS/2 or eCS.
Can I print from native applications? Not yet! But this will be the next focus once the foundation has proven to be solid.
Why do I need to print using a lpd port when my printer used usb? Printing directly to a usb printer is planned - this will most likely happen after printing from OS/2 apps is working as its really not that hard to install lpd.
Why should I test when it doesn't even let me print yet? firstly, it helps validate that the framework works on a range of systems and printers. Secondly, providing feedback helps let the people working on the project know that people are interested and provides encouragement to continue working on the project.
Thanks in advance,
Paul.
From: Paul Smedley
Source: OS2VOICE.org