[hpoj-devel] Various

[<mal...@t-...>]

Hi all,

  I recently spent some time evaluating different Linux printing systems.  
This is not exactly an easy task, especially for someone who is new to 
Linux/Unix printing concepts.  What I wanted was a printing system that let 
me give more feedback on PostScript printing jobs for the users.  Something 
more than "successful spooling at localhost" so to speak.  LPRng is quite 
something but I could not extract the necessary functions in the short time I 
had.  In other words I haven't seen it report any error code from any 
JetDirect PCL PostScript printer after some twiddling with printcap and 
various options.  The mailing list didn't prove to be helpful.

  PPR turned out to be both a complete package supporting many printers and 
offering good error reports from the printer, and offering a well-defined 
path for introduction to the use of the package, which LPRng lacks, despite 
its extensive documentation, I find.  So PPR it will be.

  So I'm wondering now about this PSC500 I have at home, but in a different 
way that I used to.  Is there out there a full detailed documentation of the 
commands this printer can receive as well as the error codes it can return?  
I would like to experiment a few things.  But so far I've been using CUPS 
with the PSC500.  And CUPS has this nasty habit of always making an ISDN 
connection, so I'm looking for something else.

  Does the ptal deamon replaces lpd ?

Cheers,

Alain