They all come from different manufacturers - getting them to collaborate might be tricky. The easiest solution is to delete all of them (not the PPDs though) and then install the drivers you need on a case by case basis. People rarely need to print to a huge range of printers.
Is it even technically possible to shrink that 2GB of Printer drivers down?
Surely they have A LOT in common.
I am wondering if this would / could be done for Snow Leopard.
In a world where 500GB drives are soon to be the base install, you're fixated on 2GBs of drivers that allow an OS to run various printers out-of-the-box?
In a world where 500GB drives are soon to be the base install, you're fixated on 2GBs of drivers that allow an OS to run various printers out-of-the-box?
Well, no. But in the interest of being simple and elegant. I dont understand why printer drivers have to be so huge.
Well, no. But in the interest of being simple and elegant. I dont understand why printer drivers have to be so huge.
They aren't individually but say 1MB per driver for 2000 printers = 2GB.
The question is not that they are huge but why do you need them all. You don't, you only need the ones for the devices you have so the easiest solution is delete the drivers for the devices you don't have and install the ones for the devices you do.
As for having one driver to operate all devices, that's just not possible to do due to the huge variety of features that devices have and specific ways manufacturers do things, some of which will be proprietary.
You could say why don't we have one set of ink refills for all printers, one set of spare parts for them. It would be a lot better if companies would work together to drive technology forwards but that tends to take away competition, which is a major driving force in innovation.
Company A makes a printer that has x printing feature and writes a proprietary driver to control it.
Company B likes A's feature so makes a similar feature their own way and has to write a separate proprietary driver to control it.
Companies * models with different features at various price points = number of drivers.
These days HP doesn't even make packages for individual printers they manufacture. You get a huge bloat for a family of devices. (try looking for the inkjet family of drivers). With disk space being cheap, software vendors prefer to save effort in building packages for individual devices when the user can mistake one model for another and call up their support desk when thing don't work.
I suppose if we kept printer drivers so that when we install new printer it doesn't require an internet connection or the CD.
I understand the maths for 1Mb = 1 Printer Drivers. And different Manufactures have differnet features. But we could still save huge amount if we refactor them.
How Many printer manfacture are there? HP, Brother, Epson, Cannon, Xerox... these properly cover 80% of the driver base already.
Consider most generation and series are roughly the same. They could easily shrink it.
For example HP has a set of universial drivers ( for windows ) for business that fits most of the business Inkjet and Laserjet for less then 50Mb. Now considering it is distributed in 3 set, and most consumer grade have 90% of the same features as found on these business printer models, they could easily fit it under 100Mb.
May be someday Apple should force all Mac certified peripherals to have an on broad driver memory so that all things load as they are plugged in.
I suppose if we kept printer drivers so that when we install new printer it doesn't require an internet connection or the CD.
I understand the maths for 1Mb = 1 Printer Drivers. And different Manufactures have differnet features. But we could still save huge amount if we refactor them.
How Many printer manfacture are there? HP, Brother, Epson, Cannon, Xerox... these properly cover 80% of the driver base already.
Consider most generation and series are roughly the same. They could easily shrink it.
For example HP has a set of universial drivers ( for windows ) for business that fits most of the business Inkjet and Laserjet for less then 50Mb. Now considering it is distributed in 3 set, and most consumer grade have 90% of the same features as found on these business printer models, they could easily fit it under 100Mb.
May be someday Apple should force all Mac certified peripherals to have an on broad driver memory so that all things load as they are plugged in.
When you go through that site you'll understand that even with PPD only devices [let's face it, if Inkjet were thrown in the trash] you'd save the most space by only using Laser Printers that require only a PPD and have all the special features and stored information, ON THE PRINTER.
The problem is that Inkjets are DUMBER DEVICES then LASER PRINTERS and they are selling Ink to make cash.
All the major facets of how to interact with that cheap device is stored in that binary driver.
PPD files for Postscript aware devices are tiny.
Stop buying Inkjet forcing them to become obsolete might allow you to see your driver total size decrease, but only after about 10 years. We do support legacy devices.
Stop buying Inkjet forcing them to become obsolete might allow you to see your driver total size decrease, but only after about 10 years. We do support legacy devices.
Two issues.
1. HP is doing it's worst to make low cost Laser printers next to useless. The new HP 1110 series has the firmware transferred to the device by the computer after it is powered on and plugged in. Try using the printer on an OS that is not supported by HP. PPD for laser printers are being defeated by this blatant jackass attempt by manufacturers for who-knows-what.
2. Inkjet printers still have the best resolution for photos and bang for the buck.
1. HP is doing it's worst to make low cost Laser printers next to useless. The new HP 1110 series has the firmware transferred to the device by the computer after it is powered on and plugged in. Try using the printer on an OS that is not supported by HP. PPD for laser printers are being defeated by this blatant jackass attempt by manufacturers for who-knows-what.
2. Inkjet printers still have the best resolution for photos and bang for the buck.
Stop buying HP Printers. Other than their Plotters you have no need to go with them. I've got Brother for Linux and OS X and they do quite well.
Buy digital display frames. They house all those beautiful photos and give you a slideshow. The print outs are a waste of time and chemical as they don't compare to actually sending to the lab to be processes and made.
Comments
Is it even technically possible to shrink that 2GB of Printer drivers down?
Surely they have A LOT in common.
I am wondering if this would / could be done for Snow Leopard.
In a world where 500GB drives are soon to be the base install, you're fixated on 2GBs of drivers that allow an OS to run various printers out-of-the-box?
In a world where 500GB drives are soon to be the base install, you're fixated on 2GBs of drivers that allow an OS to run various printers out-of-the-box?
Well, no. But in the interest of being simple and elegant. I dont understand why printer drivers have to be so huge.
Well, no. But in the interest of being simple and elegant. I dont understand why printer drivers have to be so huge.
They aren't individually but say 1MB per driver for 2000 printers = 2GB.
The question is not that they are huge but why do you need them all. You don't, you only need the ones for the devices you have so the easiest solution is delete the drivers for the devices you don't have and install the ones for the devices you do.
As for having one driver to operate all devices, that's just not possible to do due to the huge variety of features that devices have and specific ways manufacturers do things, some of which will be proprietary.
You could say why don't we have one set of ink refills for all printers, one set of spare parts for them. It would be a lot better if companies would work together to drive technology forwards but that tends to take away competition, which is a major driving force in innovation.
Company A makes a printer that has x printing feature and writes a proprietary driver to control it.
Company B likes A's feature so makes a similar feature their own way and has to write a separate proprietary driver to control it.
Companies * models with different features at various price points = number of drivers.
I understand the maths for 1Mb = 1 Printer Drivers. And different Manufactures have differnet features. But we could still save huge amount if we refactor them.
How Many printer manfacture are there? HP, Brother, Epson, Cannon, Xerox... these properly cover 80% of the driver base already.
Consider most generation and series are roughly the same. They could easily shrink it.
For example HP has a set of universial drivers ( for windows ) for business that fits most of the business Inkjet and Laserjet for less then 50Mb. Now considering it is distributed in 3 set, and most consumer grade have 90% of the same features as found on these business printer models, they could easily fit it under 100Mb.
May be someday Apple should force all Mac certified peripherals to have an on broad driver memory so that all things load as they are plugged in.
I suppose if we kept printer drivers so that when we install new printer it doesn't require an internet connection or the CD.
I understand the maths for 1Mb = 1 Printer Drivers. And different Manufactures have differnet features. But we could still save huge amount if we refactor them.
How Many printer manfacture are there? HP, Brother, Epson, Cannon, Xerox... these properly cover 80% of the driver base already.
Consider most generation and series are roughly the same. They could easily shrink it.
For example HP has a set of universial drivers ( for windows ) for business that fits most of the business Inkjet and Laserjet for less then 50Mb. Now considering it is distributed in 3 set, and most consumer grade have 90% of the same features as found on these business printer models, they could easily fit it under 100Mb.
May be someday Apple should force all Mac certified peripherals to have an on broad driver memory so that all things load as they are plugged in.
http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
When you go through that site you'll understand that even with PPD only devices [let's face it, if Inkjet were thrown in the trash] you'd save the most space by only using Laser Printers that require only a PPD and have all the special features and stored information, ON THE PRINTER.
The problem is that Inkjets are DUMBER DEVICES then LASER PRINTERS and they are selling Ink to make cash.
All the major facets of how to interact with that cheap device is stored in that binary driver.
PPD files for Postscript aware devices are tiny.
Stop buying Inkjet forcing them to become obsolete might allow you to see your driver total size decrease, but only after about 10 years. We do support legacy devices.
PPD files for Postscript aware devices are tiny.
Stop buying Inkjet forcing them to become obsolete might allow you to see your driver total size decrease, but only after about 10 years. We do support legacy devices.
Two issues.
1. HP is doing it's worst to make low cost Laser printers next to useless. The new HP 1110 series has the firmware transferred to the device by the computer after it is powered on and plugged in. Try using the printer on an OS that is not supported by HP. PPD for laser printers are being defeated by this blatant jackass attempt by manufacturers for who-knows-what.
2. Inkjet printers still have the best resolution for photos and bang for the buck.
Two issues.
1. HP is doing it's worst to make low cost Laser printers next to useless. The new HP 1110 series has the firmware transferred to the device by the computer after it is powered on and plugged in. Try using the printer on an OS that is not supported by HP. PPD for laser printers are being defeated by this blatant jackass attempt by manufacturers for who-knows-what.
2. Inkjet printers still have the best resolution for photos and bang for the buck.
Stop buying HP Printers. Other than their Plotters you have no need to go with them. I've got Brother for Linux and OS X and they do quite well.
Buy digital display frames. They house all those beautiful photos and give you a slideshow. The print outs are a waste of time and chemical as they don't compare to actually sending to the lab to be processes and made.