I give up on Puppy.

[Griot]

yes I know...perhaps its not one of the better releases...

I wish I knew that before...

...and is anyone maintaining it at present?

Not exactly, though one can find a bunch of pet/sfs or 'how to' topics arround, if (s)he is willing to spend some(?) time reading. Not an easy task for noobs, if you ask me. Now, excuse me, I'm going to a dedicated topic to rant about Tuxcart for Precise 5.71. My girls are desperate for a few
days now.

[mikeb]

Tuxcart

consider epsxe and the psx game its based on..will work much better.
These offspring need to be suitably humoured...and the adults too
Just as an aside....

mike

[8Geee]

For puppy --> Printers there has been FOO for several years. Foo works fairly well for most newer LJ and IJ Printers. (I use LJ due to mostly paperwork, as opposed to artistry). Foo is not usually bulky, and has packages tailored to certain brands. JMH2c

[Ted Dog]

Hobby like as a mindset, could not think of a better way to describe the RELAXed way of gaining knowledge about new things, verses this OP methods of frustration.
Second and unknown to most outside or with limited experience with Puppylinux and its supporters, its like the wild untamed wilderness of thousands of options here, it takes time to realize what is gold and what is not. If Windows or Apple had thousands of versions they would have the same problem, (granted all Wins would be NON-golden, but I digress ) and Apple would all look the same.
We fixed CUPS hundreds of time, yet it stays crippled, same with video, sound, battery, touchpads, SAMBA, Wifi etc. Fixes do not STICK! I had high hopes for WOLF-CE but even with the quality crew running that we are back to same habits..

[rcrsn51]

For puppy --> Printers there has been FOO for several years. Foo works fairly well for most newer LJ and IJ Printers. (I use LJ due to mostly paperwork, as opposed to artistry). Foo is not usually bulky, and has packages tailored to certain brands. JMH2c

Please explain. To what driver package are you referring?

[rcrsn51]

We fixed CUPS hundreds of time, yet it stays crippled

Please explain.

[raffy]

You'll have to explain to rcrsn51 because he has been solving printing problems here for about 5 years already:
How to Install Your Printer/Scanner in Puppy

For example, it's a bit strange to read what the OP said

I have connected a lot of printers to OSs and this Cups online system sucks

because all of them (including the Mac) are using a common system: CUPS-Common Unix Printing System.

You can of course fault the distro/build but not CUPS, and this could be rcrsn51's point.

[Ted Dog]

exactly each time a new distro, you have to reapply those fixes to get a working CUPS, not faulting anyone, but since it has been around for 5 years why not include it or provide a handy loader for it.

[rcrsn51]

exactly each time a new distro, you have to reapply those fixes to get a working CUPS, not faulting anyone, but since it has been around for 5 years why not include it or provide a handy loader for it.

Once again, what "fixes" are you talking about?

What is the "it" that you want included?

Name a recent Puppy where CUPS did NOT work OOTB.

[Smithy]

And a very good job he has done too!

All his tips work (not just for printers) it's just a bit weird having to use a server and the browser having to let local port 631 through, but as rcrn51 said a long time ago, even the little links browser will do the job, so as long as that permission disappears into the innards of puppy and doesn't ask again that's fine by me lol. I guess it has to talk to external printers some way and that was the way chosen, maybe because Linux was computer server or something.

It is more "clattery" than Windows on my Canon, more chugging noises, but I do quite like the brutal way it spits out the documents, letters to me gran etc.
Can't fault the quality of docs, pdfs and scans neither.

I don't think we should be too harsh on the entity known as Puppy Linux.

Tried a big proper Linux the other day and was challenged right from the beginning with sticking heaps of code in "for your own good, safety etc" just to get an app running, that then wouldn't run because getapt was having a bad hair day and didn't like some custom debs or something..hello, time is short.
Computer tails aren't meant to be wagging the dog.

I much prefer the rebellious spirit of cheeky buggers on here daring to make pets and funnily enough they work well!

The stuff that works well can then be locked into Puppy, and Puppy then goes on for another year without fuss. Which I think Ted Dog was commenting on.

[Ted Dog]

exactly... why fuss with stuff over and over sorry not picking on CUPS it just one in the many FIXED only to be refixed again months later. My biggest grips was video related. I rearly print stuff, but OP said CUPS so I can relate. We have quality people and methodology why can't fixes stick!

[rcrsn51]

exactly... why fuss with stuff over and over sorry not picking on CUPS it just one in the many FIXED only to be refixed again months later.

For the third time, please give an example of how CUPS needed to be fixed in a new Puppy.

[Ted Dog]

I rearly use CUPS can't give give you examples if the issue has been resolved since 2012 I would not know. stop picking on me

[mikeb]

Goalposts are constantly being moved...by hardware makers, kernel devs, gui devs etc etc...not exactly easy to work with.

Cups itself when i tried 1.5 in slax was impossibly broken...ie no way it could work (without diving into technical details)...that was the package from mighty slackware. Who broke it...cups or slackware?...was not exactly slax's fault as they were using what was supposed to be used...same for puppy when stuff does not work...not always the pup at fault.
Puppy is usually more conservative and runs with a working build so no complaints there. Indeed for that slax example I used cups 1.4 from puppy to get it working.

If I target puppy for criticism then its about say wrappers, its core construction, packaging etc..ie that which is under puppy control. Much of what you get is actually under the responsibility of third parties who of course have the 'no warranty' get out clause

c'est la vie but its free

mike

[8Geee]

For puppy --> Printers there has been FOO for several years. Foo works fairly well for most newer LJ and IJ Printers. (I use LJ due to mostly paperwork, as opposed to artistry). Foo is not usually bulky, and has packages tailored to certain brands. JMH2c

Please explain. To what driver package are you referring?

Well Cups is the printer driver for example v. 1.4.6 or 1.4.8, FOO is a "package", there are several of these, i.e. xqz, and zjs that "patch" Cups to the particular (and in some cases near-proprietary) vendor driver(s) required. "How to connect Printer to Puppy" IS a bit long-winded, but really is neceessary. Vendors, and their models and family of printers/print-scan-fax, etc gets very specific and complicated.

Ultimately, part of the blame points to the top of the pyramid so to speak, as the drivers are by design specific. From what I've seen, there are great efforts made to get the "system" to work in open-source. Different brands have different drivers... and within each brand there may be quite a few different drivers. Each driver works with a differrent series/family/group of printers, including Lazer and Ink, scanner, etc.

Edit:mikeb makes a salient point here that hplip is a humongous beast. And thats just one vendor. HP --> CUPS --> FOO tackles this rather well I think.Puppy Linux in general does a good job as I see it from my own perspective. YRMV. I don't know about CUPS 1.5, and I'm the type of person that sticks to "what works".