Re: [tlug] Printer Not Responding

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Dave" writes:

    Dave> My printer isn't listed on that site. But, Canon Japan
    Dave> provides Linux drivers for its printers, and I have the
    Dave> Japanese model, so I have the Canon Japan official Linux
    Dave> driver for my exact make and model. I can't imagine that
    Dave> would be bad.

Think again.  Open source drivers, where they are available, are
almost always better than vendor drivers.  It's not unheard of for an
existing generic driver to work better than a vendor's product-
specific driver (I've had this happen with Tulip-based ethernet cards
and with Epson printers, for example).  The problem is that they often
assume you'll have the same hardware/OS/version they do, and if you
don't, too bad.

Canon's driver site is pretty awful, at least the part that I found.
Not even an 00INDEX.TXT to let you know which files are appropriate.

It's generally a good idea to find out what hardware has open source
drivers before you buy.  (Unless you need to run a Mac or Windows box
anyway, in which case you let the proprietary OS talk to the
proprietary peripheral and things usually work.)

    Dave> I'm getting nervous now. It seems like we're hitting a dead
    Dave> end.

Oh, I wouldn't go that far.  Unfortunately, modern printers (at least
multifunction USB peripherals from Canon) don't seem to respond to
"just plain ASCII", so there's no easy test.  But somebody will figure
something out.

Maybe I'll take a crack at it this weekend (I've been letting my Mac
do the talking to my MP500 and MP950).


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