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From: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmx.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:17:20 +0200
Subject: Re: PPR: I need help justifying PPR project
David Chappell wrote:
> I have recently been asked to justify continued development and use of
> PPR here at Trinity College. It has been argued that it should be
> replaced with Microsoft Windows print servers, the argument being that
> "anyone" can manage an NT print server but only I (the author of PPR)
> can manage a PPR server.
>
Give them a class in managing PPR. Invite the other admins and also the
decision makers to the class at a certain day and then tell them, step
by step, how to manage a PPR server.
> What opinions do you, the list members have as to the worth of this
> project? Assuming you don't tell me that my critics are right, I intend
> to make a written presentation in its defense. Is anyone willing to be
> quoted as endorsing the product?
>
> If so, please send me a short statement stating why you like it and how
> you use it. It would of course help to know who you are, the name of
> your organization, and your job title.
>
I am not user of PPR, but I have tried it out. I have much more
experience with CUPS. The big advantage of PPR against other spoolers
under Unix/Linux are the sophisticated bi-directional features, as for
example user notification exactly when the last sheet leaves the printer.
With my work on Foomatic I have made it easy to use PPR with
non-PostScript printers as soon as a free GhostScript driver exists for
them. So 247 drivers and around 1000 non-PostScript printers can easily
be set up with PPR using Foomatic. This makes PPR working with every
printer which is known to work with free software. So PPR is not a
PostScript-printer-only spooler. PostScript is only the common data
format to make the printing applications device-independent.
In addition, a Windows server can get extremely unstable when there are
very many different printers connected to it, as the
manufacturer-provided drivers are all running in the kernel mode of
Windows and so one bug in a driver crashes the whole server. A Linux
server can server for thousands of printers without difficulties.
Drivers are simply PostScript-to-printer's-language filters which run in
user mode. So a crashing driver kills only the current print job, not
the whole machine.
A Windows print server does only spooling and not the rendering for
non-Windows clients, so the drivers have to run on the clients. So one
has to install the drivers on every Unix or Linux client in the network,
or one has to set up a satellite server running Linux to render the jobs
of the Linux and Unix clients before sending them to the Windows server.
I am maintainer and project leader of linuxprinting.org and Foomatic and
I am employed by MandrakeSoft as developer for printing and digital
imaging. Feel free to quote me with my affiliation info I have given
here in your justification or on the web.
> As I said, I am looking for endorsements for an internal presentation. I
> understand that there are reasons some might not be able to involve the
> names of their employers in a public forum. I would quote you before a
> wider audiance, such as the World Wide Web, only if you explicitly gave
> me permission. On that note, remember that by default replies to this
> message will go to the mailing list.
>
You have my permission.
Till