Re: [hfdb] Printer data/ "driver" formats

[Till Kamppeter]

Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> Till, can you please give us non-printer tech-heads a run down on the
> printer databases/ drivers out there.

The principal database currently is linuxprinting.org. Formerly there 
was RHS Print Filters from Red Hat, SuSE had also its own thing. All 
these disappeared as the distros switched to Foomatic from 
linuxprinting.org. There is still APS Filter as a project which is 
alive, but I do not know anyone using it. It most probably contains much 
less printer info than linuxprinting.org. IFHP of LPRng also contains 
printer info, but AFAIK only about PCL/PJL laser printers. But Patrick 
Powell, author of LPRng, is working a lot on Foomatic currently, so the 
IFHP info will make it into Foomatic sooner or later. Also PPD files 
which come with PostScript printers contain data, and very important 
data, as they describe the complete option sets of the PostScript 
printers to which they belong. Some manufacturers released their PPDs as 
free software. They are downloadable on

http://www.linuxprinting.org/download/PPD/

Foomatic/linuxprinting.org is the most important printer compatibility 
database for free software.

Drivers (for converting data to the printer's language) come from 
several different projects: HPIJS (from HP), Gimp-Print, GhostScript, 
Epson-Kowa, but also from individuals who want to get the "damned thing 
to work", as for example students who reverse-engineered the protocols 
of their Lexmark inkjets to let their university work to get printed. 
Links to all lmown free printer drivers are in the driver entries on 
linuxprinting.org.

Low-level communication drivers for printers are usually in the kernel, 
the appropriate modules for parallel and USB printers. Only a few 
printers need/perform better with something special. Here we have HPOJ 
(for HP's multi-function devices, for simultaneous printing and 
scanning, scanning at all), MTink (to print and check ink levels at the 
same time on Epson inkjets), but also drivers with low level 
communication as the drivers for the Samsung ML-85G or the Canon LBP-660 
to which you find links on linuxprinting.org.

> I've heard of linuxprinting.org (obviously), the foomatic drivers,
> various driver projects (like lprng, cups, lpd), and the whole thing has
> never seemed remotely approachable from an end-user point of view. Every
> time I do (Debian) "apt-cache search printer|grep -i print", there are
> so many things to choose from, that the task of researching even enough
> to understand it all has lead me to continue with what I was doing
> previously :(

It's a lot of stff together:

Driver

  low-level

     kernel, HPOJ, ...

   printer language

      HPIJS, Gimp-Print

Spooler/printing system

   CUPS, LPRng, PPR, PDQ, ...

PostScript/PDF renderer

   GhostScript

Integration of the driver in the spooler/printing system

   Foomatic

Printer hardware compatibility database

   Foomatic


> In particular, given Joe Shaw's recent email re: foomatic, a comparison
> between foomatic and linuxprinting db.

More about how to use Foomatic:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/cups-doc.html
http://www.linuxprinting.org/lpd-doc.html
http://www.linuxprinting.org/ppr-doc.html
http://www.linuxprinting.org/pdq-doc.html
http://www.linuxprinting.org/ppd-doc.html
   Instructions to set up print queues

http://www.linuxprinting.org/USAGE
   USAGE file of the foomatic-db-engine package

http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic-filters/USAGE
   USAGE file of the foomatic-filters package

More about how Foomatic works

http://www.linuxprinting.org/README
   README file of the foomatic-db-engine package

http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic-filters/README
   README file of the foomatic-filters package

   Till