With Push for OS X Focus, CUPS Printing May Suffer On Other Platforms 267
CUPS is the popular open-source printing system that many projects have used successfully as a core, for desktop printing and as the basis of dedicated print servers. Reader donadony writes with word that Apple "has chosen to abandon certain Linux exclusive features, [while] continuing with popular Mac OS X features. The changeover is being attempted by Apple to set new printing standards that will not require 'drivers' in the future." However, as this message from Tim Waugh at Red Hat points out, all is not lost: "Where they are of
use for the Linux environment, those orphaned features will continue to
be maintained at OpenPrinting as a
separate project."
Re:OK, whatever. (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I'd think "moving forward" would involve building a new product, not just hacking out chunks of one that's shared with one's competitors and spinning them off.
You make a good point about choices, though. The ancient, spaghetti-coded Berkeley LPD still works on modern platforms, and it's probably significantly more efficient than CUPS (I haven't actually checked, but that's where I'd lay my bets).
Re:OK, whatever. (Score:5, Interesting)
If by efficiency you mean printer thoughput, I think you'd win your bet. I abandoned CUPS on the system that serves as the print server on home network. It turned out that most applications that generated PostScript output and sent it off to a CUPS client to print on a CUPS server resulted in turning my 20ppm printer into a 1ppm printer... if we were lucky. Ditching the CUPS server and reinstalling LPRng restored the printer's normal throughput. I still have the CUPS clients set up on various systems but as a print server CUPS was a dog.