"Compatibility layer" kludges - hpoj, xprint

tactless

I once had an HP Deskjet 610C. CUPS had a driver for it (or I could download the ppd from linuxprinting.org and plug that into CUPS). I'd set it up with CUPS and it would work well.
However, now I have an HP PSC (printer/scanner) 2100. To use it with CUPS and Sane, I need a userland kludge called hpoj. Hpoj is sometimes buggy, complains a lot when the printer isn't plugged in, and requires me to have the printer on before it's started. This wasn't the case with my previous printer, and doesn't seem to be with others. Why the kludge? It might have something to do with the scanner, but I doubt that other scanners require such a userland kludge (definetely not one specific to the scanner).

Worse yet - xprint. To print Hebrew in a decent fashion from Mozilla, I need the following:

Have CUPS and all relevant kludges up, running and configured
Have the additional xprint server running (after configuration and adding the printers)
Have each user run export XPSERVERLIST="`sh /usr/sbin/xprint get_xpserverlist`"

Note that the latter has to be done, and because it has to be done by running the xprint binary - it can't simply be defined in /etc/profile.
Now let's look at another application, that behaves like most normal ones - OpenOffice.org. I need CUPS up, running and configured (and my hpoj kludge), and that's it. File->Print. Works with Hebrew too. This is true for all applications but the Mozilla suite... How come?
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Tactless

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LucaSpiller · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:46 pm Post subject:

I have a simular printer (2210) and it worked near enough out of the box with Mandrake. I am not sure what that used, but I want to get it working witn Gentoo so I will see what I can find out and post it here.
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tactless · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:38 pm Post subject:

Thank you.

Does anyone actually use xprint?
Edit: Upon reading a bit about what Xprint is, I see what the advantages of it are. Namely, it allows one to use the same code for display on the X server and printing (seeing as Xprt is sort of an X server). I hope that Xprint will become more stable, and have a simpler system-wide port notification method (or perhaps just a default port), so we don't have to add the .xinitrc hack.
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Tactless

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Evil Dark Archon · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:57 pm Post subject:

hpoj is only necessary if you plan on using the scanner feature in linux, if you only plan on making copies and printing then all you need is hpijs (with the ppds use flag) and it will work fine (i have a psc 2110xi) even if you have the printer off at start-up.
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tactless · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:39 pm Post subject:

That's good to know. However, I do want to use the scanner... do other scanners require similar services running?
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Tactless

"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."

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