CUPS=Sh!te
Sorry, but I'm on a rant!
I called and b!tched to Epson regarding their printers and OS 10.2. Even with simpathy it does not help me when Epson says that due to MAC OS 10.2, Epson will not be able to support its drivers.
After that I spent half of the day studying and then installing Gimp 4.2.2 and ESP Ghostscript on to my beloved CUBE 450, 10.2.2, 1 gig ram, Epson "StyLESS 1280" via USB. I installed Gimp, then Ghostscript and both installed fine. I restarted computer. I followed all the direction to "adding" printer using Gimp but for the life of me I do not see Gimp "Driver" anywhere on the computer (using Find). When I get an image document to print I see the printer selected as "Epson 1280 Gimp" but the thing is I have yet any control of resizing/custom sizing a paper media. This was the whole point to install GIMP in the first place, after looking at the screenshot on the website. I am not able to enable such window. What I do get, that Apple's Print Center does not, is ink output control via Printer Features selection.
If this is the extent of "flexible" control options under OS 10.2 then Apple is going to piss off a lot of professionals in the field of image/graphic/print & prepress/ design. The response that I got from Epson is that they are hoping a major revision in OS 10.5. I'm pretty sure by the time Apple releases 10.5, my cat's poop will be petrified.
I guess the reason why I'm posting this topic is to question why Apple decided to use CUPS for printing. If I purchase a third party hardware I'd expect that the hardware's company would have a better knowledge of it's product to operate than a generic language written driver such as CUPS. Perhaps Apple is trying too hard to make the printing process easy but Apple should also understand that Mac user are not dumb-founded PC users and that I'd use it as a custom hardware tool just like the Apple computer itself. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars using pro equipment such as Creoscitex digital backs, Eversmart scanners, Epson 10,000, 9700, Fujix 4000 Pictography...I don't intend on spending such money on specialized equipment to do basic input/outputs.
Am I just having a bad day or is this a valid issue to cuss over?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: kwondo ]</p>
I called and b!tched to Epson regarding their printers and OS 10.2. Even with simpathy it does not help me when Epson says that due to MAC OS 10.2, Epson will not be able to support its drivers.
After that I spent half of the day studying and then installing Gimp 4.2.2 and ESP Ghostscript on to my beloved CUBE 450, 10.2.2, 1 gig ram, Epson "StyLESS 1280" via USB. I installed Gimp, then Ghostscript and both installed fine. I restarted computer. I followed all the direction to "adding" printer using Gimp but for the life of me I do not see Gimp "Driver" anywhere on the computer (using Find). When I get an image document to print I see the printer selected as "Epson 1280 Gimp" but the thing is I have yet any control of resizing/custom sizing a paper media. This was the whole point to install GIMP in the first place, after looking at the screenshot on the website. I am not able to enable such window. What I do get, that Apple's Print Center does not, is ink output control via Printer Features selection.
If this is the extent of "flexible" control options under OS 10.2 then Apple is going to piss off a lot of professionals in the field of image/graphic/print & prepress/ design. The response that I got from Epson is that they are hoping a major revision in OS 10.5. I'm pretty sure by the time Apple releases 10.5, my cat's poop will be petrified.
I guess the reason why I'm posting this topic is to question why Apple decided to use CUPS for printing. If I purchase a third party hardware I'd expect that the hardware's company would have a better knowledge of it's product to operate than a generic language written driver such as CUPS. Perhaps Apple is trying too hard to make the printing process easy but Apple should also understand that Mac user are not dumb-founded PC users and that I'd use it as a custom hardware tool just like the Apple computer itself. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars using pro equipment such as Creoscitex digital backs, Eversmart scanners, Epson 10,000, 9700, Fujix 4000 Pictography...I don't intend on spending such money on specialized equipment to do basic input/outputs.
Am I just having a bad day or is this a valid issue to cuss over?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: kwondo ]</p>
Comments
as for
>Mac user are not dumb-founded PC users
pc/unix users are generally more technical
than mac users......
read up carefully
i managed to get my epson stylus 800 working
with minor tweaking
cups is a great printing system,,,,,
As I stated, my Epson does print with the Gimp installed. The reason I think CUPS is not good is that CUPS language (at this time) doesn't allow the full capacity of it's third party OEM driver! For example, in Epson 1280 driver I create a custom paper size with various borders, including borderless printing (which is one of 1280's selling points) and I can resize and place my image anywhere in a WYSIWYG layout. This was the key feature for purchasing this unit. Under CUPS's Print Center--> GIMP enabled driver I still do not have this interface or such control. If I want easy printing where it is straight forward then I'll print using CUPS but when I'm doing my work where it requires me to make custom printing method then I should be allowed to use my Epson specific driver that allows me to do what it was meant to do.
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: kwondo ]</p>
Yup, sounds like shiite to me.
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: kcmac ]</p>
fyi....my epson 800 is attached to my linux
box & it took some tweaking to get the ti800
to print to it
nothing wrong with cups i think apple's using
a broken version...
i had the same issue on gentoo linux but down grading to an older ver of cups & everything
worked as expected......
see <a href="http://forums.gentoo.org"; target="_blank">http://forums.gentoo.org</a>;
theres some good posts on cups on there & may
help out out
I did not say that my Epson 1280 didn't work. It does print via Apple's Print Center and GIMP 4.2.2. BUT, under CUPS interface it does not allow me to make precise control of the specialized Epson printer. I want to be able to use Epson's driver but the CUPS interface doesn't allow the Epson to override Apple's Print Center.
Example: Image Capture gives you a choice as to what to do. By default Image Capture is set to launch iPhoto if you plug a digital camera for downloading. I use Kodak Pro Back for my work and when I plug it to a computer I don't want iPhoto but Kodak's dedicated driver that control a $18,000.00 equipment. Image Capture allows me to select which application I want to use when I plug it in. This works great! Apple wins, I win, Kodak wins. Why doesn't Apple's Print Center allow such selection to what driver application I want to use?
If I buy a highly specialized equipment I want to be able to use it that way.
I now move my
<strong>I now move my
Did you read any of the posts above? Without CUPS you wouldn't be able to use your printer AT ALL!!
Apple gave you a free open source driver to your printer that you can use because EPSON haven't made one.
Complain to EPSON, not Apple.
<strong>Why doesn't Apple's Print Center allow such selection to what driver application I want to use?</strong><hr></blockquote>
It does, but the problem is that you don't have an EPSON written driver to select.