Puppy Stardust 006

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
Message
Author
User avatar
zigbert
Posts: 6621
Joined: Wed 29 Mar 2006, 18:13
Location: Valåmoen, Norway
Contact:

#61 Post by zigbert »

prehistoric
I think it is a great idea to collect external ppd-files into a pet. It could either be included into the iso, or we could provide a download link in the the html-page (/usr/sbin/cups_shell). - Depending on size and usage.
I don't know much about printing (except I want it to work :D ). Please help me and other puppians.


Sigmund

User avatar
prehistoric
Posts: 1744
Joined: Tue 23 Oct 2007, 17:34

printer pet

#62 Post by prehistoric »

Zigbert,

I'll start a thread for the pet tomorrow, after I've tried out 006 on a few more machines, (so I'll know what problems people are likely to encounter before I write the instructions.) My idea is to collect ppd files, or equivalents, for every printer someone reports working with a specific unmodified pupplet, starting with Stardust. When someone reports a problem, that goes into a different thread on printing.

Naturally, I can think of something for you to do. This is simple, (I hope.) When a printer is added to a system, the description file should be copied from /usr/share/cups/model to a location where it will not be removed when the pet is uninstalled. After the pet is uninstalled, there should be an option to restore the descriptions of working printers on the system to /usr/share/cups/model. This will give people working printing with minimum overhead.

This same technique could be used for font packages. As you know, these can take a lot of space. Once you have things set up as you like, you can uninstall the pet, and only keep the additional ones you have actually used, plus a number required for system functions.

For people with more space than they know what to do with, there is no particular reason to uninstall. For machines where space is tight, this makes it easy to get things working and down to minimum requirements.

What do you think?

prehistoric

jpeps
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sat 31 May 2008, 19:00

#63 Post by jpeps »


User avatar
zigbert
Posts: 6621
Joined: Wed 29 Mar 2006, 18:13
Location: Valåmoen, Norway
Contact:

#64 Post by zigbert »

prehistoric
What model to be used for installation depends on the result you get. Your ppd is 5kb, which gives us 100 printerdrivers in 0.5 megabytes. - Sounds not bad.

Sigmund

User avatar
prehistoric
Posts: 1744
Joined: Tue 23 Oct 2007, 17:34

ppd files

#65 Post by prehistoric »

zigbert wrote:prehistoric
What model to be used for installation depends on the result you get. Your ppd is 5kb, which gives us 100 printerdrivers in 0.5 megabytes. - Sounds not bad.

Sigmund
That's 5 KB gzipped, when unpacked in /usr/share/cups/model it takes 28 KB of RAM. Losing 2-3 MB of RAM would be significant, if all the definitions stay there all the time. The ppd files aren't the biggest problem. There are some printers that just don't follow that model, and require larger drivers of their own.

I've done a few more tests. An HP Laserjet 1320 worked "out of the box" with the definition already available, (once I found the correct entry.) An HP Photosmart 8250 I encountered probably matches requirements for the 8200, which is said to work perfectly with the HPLIP package from HP. I don't have experience with this, but will check. Several manufacturers have similar "universal" Linux driver packages available which take megabytes.

We have decisions to make about where to cut-off built-in support and provide a separate custom pet. Even if much better drivers exist, I would like to include working ppd files in the basic printer support package. There are probably only half a dozen manufacturers furnishing distinct large "unified" driver packages worth having. One problem is that the resulting printers are sold under different labels, so consumers are not aware of who actually built the device.

As jpeps' link shows, most printers usable under Linux are in the Open Printing database. Yesterday, I found a ppd file there for a Samsung ML-1740 about which we had a question. This looked very similar to the file for my ML-1710. I'm hoping to hear back about a success.

I also dug out an ancient Canon BJC-210 I have, and found a ppd file for it. (Unfortunately, while the device appeared ready to work, the ink had fossilized.)

I'll try several other printers today, at friends' houses. At present, I'm testing all of these under Stardust 006, using the test page in Abiword instead of the CUPS test page. When 007 comes out, I won't have to warn people about this, will I?

Added: Just so people will not think I'm trying to take credit for someone else's work, here's the link to Patriot's CUPS topic I've been using. What I'm trying to do is merely to confirm that things now work under Stardust.

I can now confirm that the splix-2.00 pet works with my Samsung ML-1710 and another ML-1740. Splix is 58 KB., versus 5 KB for the ppd file for the ML-1710, but after I count the number of ppd files it can replace, with full functionality, I've decided splix-2.00 makes more sense. I have the HPLIP lite pet, and will test that on that HP Photosmart 8250 when I next have access to the printer.

One problem is that even the lite version of HPLIP is 3.8 MB, and some printers require additional plug-ins. HPLIP makes more sense as a separate package than as built-in support.

User avatar
`f00
Posts: 807
Joined: Thu 06 Nov 2008, 19:13
Location: the Western Reserve

#66 Post by `f00 »

As usual, thanks for the xdelta, 01micko :) . Good to see there's a new default for textviewer - imo a textviewer should be read-only (xfv provides this nicely as an addon in xfexplorer, as well as a nicer file-browser imo). Too many times a n00B can alter a file if too many windows open and the wrong mausclick may do some damage with a normal texteditor...

@prehistoric - :lol: bad dog wallpapersetter, lately it's /usr/share/bgdo/<tinysimplescript-here> for me (so I don't have to use escapes for some options in other wm-menus like pekwm, wmx and e16) .. hsetroot (mostly) plays nice, there was some issue for me in q003 where the bgsetter (roxpin) is keeping .jpg format all to itself and other methods need .png images to work (unruly hound!) :) .. yep, photogs and graphic artists are generally easygoing folk 'til bad things happen to their work.

hmm, since no xdelta for q003->q005 yet...

User avatar
technowomble
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu 11 Oct 2007, 17:04
Location: West Gloucestershire, UK

#67 Post by technowomble »

zigbert/prehistoric.

It may be a bit late to be of use in Stardust 007, but I've been having a bit of a play with jpg's in 006 and have made the following observations.
When a jpg file is corrupted it keeps the jpg file type, but on checking properties that shows it as a text file.
If I copied a jpg from my flash drive into root, and then renamed it by adding ' ORIGINAL- ' I could copy it into /usr/share/backgrounds and it would open normally.
The addition seems to stop whatever is altering the file, which seems to have something to do with moving it deeper into the file tree. I'm a user rather than a developer, but I hope this may give you some clues.

User avatar
zigbert
Posts: 6621
Joined: Wed 29 Mar 2006, 18:13
Location: Valåmoen, Norway
Contact:

#68 Post by zigbert »

prehistoric
I'll include the splix driver. Please test with Stardust 007.


Sigmund

User avatar
zigbert
Posts: 6621
Joined: Wed 29 Mar 2006, 18:13
Location: Valåmoen, Norway
Contact:

#69 Post by zigbert »

technowomble wrote:zigbert/prehistoric.

It may be a bit late to be of use in Stardust 007, but I've been having a bit of a play with jpg's in 006 and have made the following observations.
When a jpg file is corrupted it keeps the jpg file type, but on checking properties that shows it as a text file.
If I copied a jpg from my flash drive into root, and then renamed it by adding ' ORIGINAL- ' I could copy it into /usr/share/backgrounds and it would open normally.
The addition seems to stop whatever is altering the file, which seems to have something to do with moving it deeper into the file tree. I'm a user rather than a developer, but I hope this may give you some clues.
The crop function are removed for 007


Sigmund

Post Reply