Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:01:35 -0500 From: "robert perry" <rperry1742@verizon.net> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: How to Research Availability of Print Drivers Message-ID: <3D355DBC35F1403E9A6C746D54FE9969@my.domain> References: <1EFD2A72678E4EE8BC2BE49BBEA0339C@my.domain>
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----- Original Message ----- From: "robert perry" <rperry1742@verizon.net> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 2:39 PM Subject: How to Research Availability of Print Drivers >I intend to purchase a multifunction printer (including fax, scanner, & >copier) and return to utilizing the BSD operating systems. Early research >indicates that few printer manufacturers formally support the FreeBSD or >Unix operating systems but imply that drivers may still be available >elsewhere. In the past, I remember visiting certain websites that provided >links to drivers but have forgotten the address. Could someone refresh my >memory or provide an address that could help? =============== >From Robert Bonomi: For the 'printer' side, look for something that supports a 'standard' printer _language_ -- preferably PostScript -- over a serial or parallel port, or the 'lpr/lpd' protocol over a network connection. *OR* look at the (limited!) list of 'winrinters' directly supported by Ghostscript. For faxing, look for something tht is 'Class2.0' (aka EIA/TIA 592) compliant. any standard fax software -- like 'hylafax' - will talk to it. For scanning, see the manpage for SANE(7). also <www.sane-project.org> The higher-end Brother MFP units pretty much work 'out of the box', for everything except scanning. Brother provides scanner driver binaries for SANE on Linux, and source-code for the adventurous. A quick persual indicates that a number of *nix varients are supported, including several *BSD varients (FreeBSD is not explicitly mentioned, unfortunately) It does not look like it would require 'linuxemulator' compilation. A quick attempt at './configure' indicated a need for some tweaking of pathnames or file location. ================= >From Polytropon: Maybe you're thinking about linuxprinting.org which provides PPD device descriptions that can be incorporated in CUPS which has become the "de-facto standard" for printing? ================= >From Da Rock: Maybe try openprint.org? Thank you all for your suggestions. I was able to review each and I think they'll be helpful. I almost forgot how much fun this could be. Bob Perry
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