Gutenprint

I was just wondering if we could boost our available printer drivers if someone were to port GutenPrint (specifically the Ghostscript IJS driver + config options). Any thoughts?

Mark

@Mark

From Wikipedia: (full item here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenprint)
Gutenprint (formerly Gimp-Print) is a collection of free software printer drivers for use with UNIX spooling systems, such as CUPS, lrp and LPRng. These drivers provide printing services for UNIX systems (including Linux), Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.


Yes, it's a shame AmigaOS isn't included here, but wasn't there some talk about porting CUPS? If so, Gutenprint wouldn't half be useful.

@Mark

What about using the information found within CUPS, GutenPrint et al to write AmigaOS printer drivers with it instead of doing another half-working port of some bloated *nix subsystem?

The effort for doing the port (and, even more important, the bunch of dependencies it needs to work) would be much, much higher than doing a Amiga printer driver with the information found in the CUPS/GutenPrint open source drivers.

Regards

@whose

because as most people involved will know, the Amiga print system is flawed, by using Gutenprint/Ghostscript you output in Postscript and convert to the best the printer can do.

Mark

@Mark

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Only in that point that it doesnt support application developers very good. But still no reason to switch to another system that doesnt support the developers of graphical software very good...

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You want to say that it is good for e.g. a developer, that he has to output picture rasters to PS first, to get it rasterized further by GhostScript and finally get it rasterized a third time by pstoraster?

Not to mention the RAM demand this chain will have, speak, the user has several problems getting his machine equipped with RAM, just for raster printing...

No question, it is time for some improvements on the Amiga print system, even a page description/layout language could be used in the end (what about PCL?), but I dont think that it is necessary to use (as I said in my first post) a half-finished port of some quite bloated *nix subsystem for this.

The current Amiga print system is still good enough to get the best out of a raster printer, if the matching driver is supplied. The latter one is the real problem we just have, and at first glance CUPS seems to be the solution for this. But in the end it isnt.

Btw., which AmigaOS print software you want to use for printout using CUPS actually? :)

Regards

@Mark

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I had a look at the Gutenprint source-code, but it was too big and had many Linux dependencies for me to do anything with it. IIRC, gutenprint has no postscript support whatsoever. It takes rasterised graphics and transforms them into instructions for the printer, much like the Amiga printing system does. CUPS handles the postscript stuff.

I do think that postscript should become the print format of choice, and that ghostscript is used to rasterize it to any printer format. This can already be done, but it's not seamlessly integrated into the printing system. Other than that, we just need more drivers. I've personally decided to look for a printer that understands postscript next time that I buy a printer; they're more expensive, but that way I sidestep the whole printer driver issue.

Hans

@Hans

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I did that years ago, and have never had a printing problem since.
Use the OS4 postscript printer option, and it works fine.

@Hans

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That was the point to be honest, gutenprint provides a more up-to-date list of printer drivers than ghostscript alone. It also provides the IJS driver to ghostscript. So my suggestion was Amiga App|Amiga Postscript driver ->Ghostscript ->gutenprint driver ->printer.

Personally I dont need it as I have a colour HP laser that is postscript so I get pretty good quality anyway.

And I agree Postscript should be the default which then gets converted as necessary.

Mark