[sf-lug] CUPS (was: Xsane can't see ...) printer

[Akkana Peck]

Rick Moen writes:
> Regarding the Brother HL-3170CDW, [ ... ]

Interesting information! When I was researching the printer before
buying, what I found was admittedly mixed, but I couldn't find any
other printers that weren't vastly more expensive that looked like
they had a higher chance of success. I didn't know to look for PCL6,
so would have just glossed over that: it used to be that you could
look for "generic Postscript" printers, but now that printers use
PDF rather than PS I didn't have much luck searching for that.

> (I see your page about all this, at
> http://shallowsky.com/blog/linux/cups-printers-urls.html .)
[ ... ]
> > I tried to use the CUPS web interface (on Debian testing) to
> > configure them. In both cases, there were several versions of the
> > printer available in the CUPS menus, but after spending a couple of
> > hours trying every combination of driver and port, I couldn't get
> > any of the available versions to work. [ ... ]
> > I think this probably says more about bit-rot and lack of testing
> > in CUPS, [ ... ]
> 
> I don't think it indicates any problem with CUPS, on the basis of what
> you said.  If you examine the downloadable files from the manufacturer,
> I believe you'll find that they have _no_ grant of permission to anyone
> else to distribute them.  If so (as I suspect), then Linux distributions
> cannot lawfully include them in CUPS.

I'm sure that's true, but I'm not blaming CUPS for anything related
to the manufacturer driver package. I'm blaming it for the failures
of the Debian CUPS pages before I downloaded any manufacturer package.

- Why does CUPS offer three different choices for the Brother
  HL-3170CDW if none of them work? 

- Why does CUPS include a choice claiming the printer will work
  driverless if that's not the case?

- Why does CUPS list several different drivers with identical names
  and no way to tell them apart?

- Why does CUPS auto-fill seven potential connection URLs for the
  printer, none of which actually work to talk to the printer, yet
  it won't give you a hint what it's actually looking for so you can
  craft a working URL?

The first two problems suggest a lack of testing of the printer
drivers included with Debian's CUPS packages, not to a flaw within
the CUPS mechanism. The third and fourth are bugs in CUPS itself.

It's possible that the last issue, the connection type, is a bug
that only affects luddites like myself who don't run "Bonjour"
daemons, and possibly that part would work if I was running a full
desktop with all the daemons. But even so, it should give a hint
what it's looking for so it can be used without Bonjour, and
that doesn't explain the other three bugs.

        ...Akkana