From owner-freebsd-arch Sun Jul 2 11:26:15 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from astart2.astart.com (astart2.astart.com [206.71.174.194]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12ADD37B5BA for ; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 11:26:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from papowell@astart.com) Received: from h4.private (papowell@h4.private [10.0.0.4]) by astart2.astart.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA23433; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 11:27:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from papowell@localhost) by h4.private (8.9.3/8.9.3) id LAA04873; Sun, 2 Jul 2000 11:25:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 11:25:37 -0700 (PDT) From: papowell@astart.com Message-Id: <200007021825.LAA04873@h4.private> To: drosih@rpi.edu, sheldonh@uunet.co.za, wes@softweyr.com Subject: Re: was: Bringing LPRng into FreeBSD? Cc: arch@FreeBSD.ORG, papowell@astart.com Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > From drosih@rpi.edu Mon Jun 26 18:08:56 2000 > Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 21:09:27 -0400 > To: Wes Peters , Sheldon Hearn > From: Garance A Drosihn > Subject: Re: was: Bringing LPRng into FreeBSD? > Cc: arch@FreeBSD.ORG, papowell@astart.com > > At 5:08 PM -0600 6/26/00, Wes Peters wrote: > >Sheldon Hearn wrote: > > > > > > My only concern is that we lose through incompatibility with > > > previous releases what we gain in maintenance. > > > > > > Of course, I'm one of the people that isn't affected by this. > > > I'm just worried about the "replacement bandwagon" that seems > > > to be gathering momentum. [...] > > > >We're in the same boat here. I'm a very lightweight user of lpr, > >but also worry about replacement "because it's cool" rather than > >replacement because it really needs to be replaced. > > > >OTOH, I'm the first to agree that lpr is an arcane pile of bits. > >I wonder if we shouldn't hold out for something even more up-to-date > >than LPRng. Rather than going with an LPR system that sucks less, > >perhaps a really good queuing system that knows how to feed printers, > >handles print and graphics files formats automagically, and is > >configured through a simple web interface? > > Well, lprNG does offer some of that, though not the 'simple web > interface' for configuring. Part of the problem for that goal > is that the printers themselves have all kinds of annoying quirks. > > The current code for freebsd's lpr is actually cleaned up quite a > bit from a few years ago. Still a bit arcane and poorly structured, > but improving. I tend to prefer gradual cleanup like this to starting > some brand new printing project with all kinds of grand goals. If > anyone is uneasy about switching to lprNG, they'd have to be even > more uneasy about a complete printing rewrite which loses all trace > of past history. > > > --- > Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu > Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu > Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute > Ummm... LPRng is actually 16 years old... Patrick To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message