[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] printing protocols

[James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com>]

Iain Buchanan <iaindb <at> netspace.net.au> writes:

> I'm playing around with a new printer at work (Xerox Document Center
> C360).  It's a bit of a monster, but it does have some good features.
> Anyway, I'm wondering what protocol I should use to talk to it? I did a
> port scan and found these ports open:
>   80 http
>  111 sunrpc
>  139 netbios-ssn
>  515 printer
>  631 ipp
> 1025 ?
> 1605 ?


Hello Iain,
ipp (631) gets my vote. You can use cups with ipp and here's some docs, 
should you not be successful via the cups gui interfaces
[1,2]

Here's a simple example I use to get printing up on new systems:
(/etc/cups/printers.conf)

<DefaultPrinter LaserJet>
Info LaserJet
DeviceURI socket://192.168.2.3
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>

The gui in cups then picks up the config and you can
use the gui to manage the printer hereafter. The gui
via cups is not fully robust, in my experience. YMMV.

More elaborate configs are often warranted. This simple config
gets the ethernet on a HP laserjet working, very quickly. 
After it initially prints, I usually comb the net for 
support of the advanced features you want/need.

> I've so far tried printing via a samba share on our server, which seems
> to work; and direct using ipp, which worked.

> My question is really what's the difference?  Are some features
> supported better on some protocols? Are some faster / less resource
> intensive?

Dunno if anyone has benchmarked these choices....

> I'm using cups and gimp-print to get the driver for it.
> I'd appreciate any info. Thanks!

Here are a few more resources to ponder:


[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/printing-howto.xml#cups
[2] http://localhost:631/sam.html
[3] http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase/kdeprint/cups-ipp-support.html
[4] http://linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
[5] http://www.owlfish.com/thoughts/winipp-cups-2003-07-20.html
[6] http://www.cups.org/windows/


hth,

James




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