zigbert wrote:prehistoric
What model to be used for installation depends on the result you get. Your ppd is 5kb, which gives us 100 printerdrivers in 0.5 megabytes. - Sounds not bad.
Sigmund
That's 5 KB gzipped, when unpacked in /usr/share/cups/model it takes 28 KB of RAM. Losing 2-3 MB of RAM would be significant, if all the definitions stay there all the time. The ppd files aren't the biggest problem. There are some printers that just don't follow that model, and require larger drivers of their own.
I've done a few more tests. An HP Laserjet 1320 worked "out of the box" with the definition already available, (once I found the correct entry.) An HP Photosmart 8250 I encountered probably matches requirements for the 8200, which is said to work perfectly with the HPLIP package from HP. I don't have experience with this, but will check. Several manufacturers have similar "universal" Linux driver packages available which take megabytes.
We have decisions to make about where to cut-off built-in support and provide a separate custom pet. Even if much better drivers exist, I would like to include working ppd files in the basic printer support package. There are probably only half a dozen manufacturers furnishing distinct large "unified" driver packages worth having. One problem is that the resulting printers are sold under different labels, so consumers are not aware of who actually built the device.
As jpeps' link shows, most printers usable under Linux are in the Open Printing database. Yesterday, I found a ppd file there for a Samsung ML-1740 about which we had a question. This looked very similar to the file for my ML-1710. I'm hoping to hear back about a success.
I also dug out an ancient Canon BJC-210 I have, and found a ppd file for it. (Unfortunately, while the device appeared ready to work, the ink had fossilized.)
I'll try several other printers today, at friends' houses. At present, I'm testing all of these under Stardust 006, using the test page in Abiword instead of the CUPS test page. When 007 comes out, I won't have to warn people about this, will I?
Added: Just so people will not think I'm trying to take credit for someone else's work, here's the link to
Patriot's CUPS topic I've been using. What I'm trying to do is merely to confirm that things now work under Stardust.
I can now confirm that the splix-2.00 pet works with my Samsung ML-1710 and another ML-1740. Splix is 58 KB., versus 5 KB for the ppd file for the ML-1710, but after I count the number of ppd files it can replace, with full functionality, I've decided splix-2.00 makes more sense. I have the HPLIP lite pet, and will test that on that HP Photosmart 8250 when I next have access to the printer.
One problem is that even the lite version of HPLIP is 3.8 MB, and some printers require additional plug-ins. HPLIP makes more sense as a separate package than as built-in support.