Re: What iPrint should be...future request
Joseph Marton
> The other big wish is that uploading of drivers is required trough
> Internet Explorer ONLY. So how do we add Mac-OS-driver? How do we add
> Linux-driver? This is a completely wrong choice of technology and
> strategy.
You use IE to upload these. I know it works with XP. I haven't tried
Vista or Windows 7 to upload Linux/Mac drivers but I assume these OSes
work as well.
--
Joe Marton
Novell Knowledge Partner
Ron Neilly
specifc drivers, just the Linux drivers (ppd's actually since the *nix
system uses CUPS which is all based on postscript driver).
You can upload the Linux/Mac drivers from any operating system including
your Windows XP workstation in your office using the "Upload from File"
option. You still might have to use IE though.
I have read from some Novell source (sorry can't provide a citation, poor
memory) that the iPrint dev's are working on removing ActiveX dependencies
in a future release of iPrint/iManager.
Actually if you are running the iPrint Broker/Store on Linux you can upload
drivers from a Linux command line IIRC. Check the documentation.
I am no software engineer so what I have to say next may be completely off
base.... Part of the problem is in the way the various OS's support print
drivers. Both Windows and OS X support the inclusion of software in the
driver that is specific to the driver/os. So the driver may include exe's
and dll's (Windows). These are specified in the os specific installation
file (.inf in Windows). So it makes a certain amount of sense that to get
these os specific bits into the repackaged iprint driver store that you
would need to use the particular driver management tools/api's of that os -
thus meaning that you could only do the upload from the os that the driver
was written for. Especially if you were trying to set up some particular
printer functionality or options (additional trays, feeders, staplers, etc)
during the initial driver upload. Or later on via a printer driver profile.
We can also lay some of the blame on the printer manufacturers for creating
driver install routines that require execution of a binary and hide all of
the setup. That is why I like the CUPS method - you basically have a single
postscript-based driver supplied by the OS and then all the printer maker
has to do is write a plain text ppd to tell the driver what functions the
printer supports.
Ultimately though I do agree with one aspect of your rant : why on earth do
we not have a truly universal, open, OS independent print system that all
printer manufacturers and OS vendors collaborate on? This has been a topic
of discussion between these folks (HP, Xerox, MS, Novell, Linux) for years
with public declarations of cooperation from all of them. What about the
'interoperability lab' that Novell and Microsoft set up? Where is the fruit
of all this cooperative effort? Nothing but stillborn crap making our lives
hell ever since the first printer was invented.
So yeah I feel your pain and agree with you that it is insane - I just
disagree that the blame lies solely with Novell.
Cheers,
Ron