One Year Later - CUPS Admin Still Lacking? 447
DopeyDad asks: "OK, it was close to a year ago (Eric's site says July 2004, but I'd swear the original rant came earlier last year) that Eric Raymond's tirade on the unfriendly status of configuring the CUPS printing system on Linux was published. Well, I've been struggling with setting up a new laptop and getting it to talk to my print server, using Fedora Core 3, and nothing seems to have changed -- the admin items for adding a printer are exactly as Eric described them back then -- unclear, confusing, and no where near as friendly as their Win* equivalents. Definitely not something I'd expect my Aunt Ethel to be able to figure out. What's going on here? Granted, FC3 is ready to be replaced, but I don't see any CUPS updates for it. Is work being done with CUPS to address Eric's original complaints, or has this issue fallen off the radar?" For those who are still frustrated with the CUPS GUI, how would you improve it?
Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
By using Mac OS X's interface to CUPS. [apple.com]
:P
IIRC... (Score:4, Insightful)
Such is the nature of the beast... (Score:5, Insightful)
The KISS Principal (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the problems with FLOSS is that it tends to be written by hackers (which is also one of its biggest benefits, but I digress)...
Hackers want lots of options. They want to be able to configure FIFO settings for serial printers and flow controls, and all the technical nitty gritty.
Grandma doesn't know what the hell a flow control is. All she wants to do is a print a picture the grandkids sent her.
The biggest barrier to FLOSS usability is often overwhelming the user with too many options. A good GUI presents the most basic options you need to accomplish a task, and hides the rest where Grandma won't find it, but where someone who wants to change some deep, dark setting has the option of doing so.
IMHO, Mac OS X Gets It Right. Their configuration dialogs are quite simple, but you can always get under the hood if you need to. That sort of ease of use is what makes OS X a Unix that Grandma can use.
And if it takes messing about with obscure settings to get things to work, then the back end needs to be refined until the system works.
Complexity is at odds with usability, and in general FLOSS tends to be balanced more towards the former than the latter.
Re:Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that's missing is seamless functionality and implementation, as usual. Coding cool stuff and coding pretty, highly portable stuff are two different things, and it's hard to get people to do one for free.
Non-issue (Score:1, Insightful)
If Fedora doesn't make it easy to set up a printer, then it's Fedora's fault. The whole purpose of a distribution is to sort things like this out.
It would be the same if there was a partition-eating bug in the Linux kernel. If Fedora destroys your data, it's Fedora's fault, even if the bug is in the Linux kernel.
In my case, I use KDE, and have had no problems setting up printers. If Fedora doesn't use KDE and doesn't supply suitable tools that do the same thing as KDE's printer manager, then it's a major shortcoming of Fedora. Not "Linux".
Please. (Score:3, Insightful)
What's so hard about clicking on "Manage Printers" and then "Add Printer"?
Among my recent linux converts, they described CUPS as being relatively hastle free, and superior to the oft-broken process under Windows.
What's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Needs to be as simple as windows printing. (Score:5, Insightful)
In windows setting up a printer is as easy as \\servername\ printersharename
On the server adding that printer to be available to clients is just a matter of knowing what port, or IP its on (which configures a "port" when you provide the IP during setup). This again is a minor job.
I've tried, several times to get CUPS working and ave found it the stupidest sub system in all of UNIX. There has got to be a better way, but I haven't found it yet, has anyone else?
I have been able to get everything I have ever needed working in Linux in the past simply bu reading the man pages and how-to's but neither seems to have the answers for CUPS.
My printer in my house is on a printer server box. Configuring printing should be trivial. Privide a printer type and an IP and GO.
Re:Wonder why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the idea that the community can do what people can't, or won't do for themselves.
Some people don't have time to do what would have to be done.
Re:Windows no rose garden either (Score:2, Insightful)
So there.
Problems everywhere (Score:3, Insightful)
____
Printers are, generally, a bit of a pain in the ass. There are way too many proprietary drivers and driver styles, and I really don't see the need for it.
Why can't these manufacturers define a standardized, extensible interface format for their printers and end this madness once and for all?
Re:The KISS Principal (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the options should be there, but the path from source to basic functionality should be short, simple, and sweet. Once I can play with it, then figuring out the rest becomes easy.
That said, I have no problems configuring CUPS. It's always worked quite well for me in FC3. Just general thoughts on some F/OSS projects I've dealt with in the past.
To those who would say "fix it if you don't like it," I'm an embedded firmware programmer and electrical engineer. You don't want me touching application code, just like I don't want application monkeys touching firmware. The mentality of what needs to be done and how to do it are entirely different and somewhat incompatible.
Re:The KISS Principal (Score:4, Insightful)
Autodetection (Score:3, Insightful)
It *knows* i have no jetdirect or network printer, that the printer is connected on lp0 and it correctly detects the model.
Why it needs to ask me how the printer is connected is beyond me. This can only confuse new users.
Why should there be "printer administration"? (Score:3, Insightful)
You ask an application to print something. At most, you should have to specify which printer. The system should have figured out by itself everything it needs to know about directly attached printers. Anything on the local network that offers printing should have already been recognized. Faraway printers may have to be specified in some way, but even there, you'd expect a directory system or search engine to do the heavy lifting. There should be no need for explicit "system administration".
That's how it should work. Yes, it's not easy to do it that way. Yes, there are some older printers that can't be automatically identified via their electrical interface. Yes, sometimes the system may have to find and download some format conversion program.
Re:CUPS (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen to that. I'm partial to the KDEPrint system [kde.org], and wish that it was half as easy to configure network printers in Windows as it is through the nice KDE GUI.
For those who didn't catch that, let me repeat it: in my experience, it's much easier to configure printers (particular network servers) in KDE than it is in Windows. As far as I'm concerned, this particular problem is well solved.
Re:How 'bout the book? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A CUPS How-To (Score:2, Insightful)
A Guide For GNU/Linux Users
1. Save up $500.
2. Forget about your freedom and Buy a Mac.
3. Live as a slave of a company that sells proprietary software and hardware.
Re:Wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course not. ESR raised alot of issues and even got some positive response from the CUPS developers. Good for him.
But the Ask Slashdot submitter shouldn't expect developers to fall all over themselves just because ESR says so.
Windows print config easy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
This line of thinking is only acccurate in a theoretical sense. Unfortunately, it assumes that all people are roughly equal in competence with regard to a given task. One of the most important parts of getting a job done is arranging to have it done by someone who can do the job. No amount of enthusiasm or hard work is going to allow (say) a ditch digger to write an improved print manager interface until he's invested some minimum amount of time learning all the basic precursor stuff. Perhaps this is why MS spokesholes compare FOSS to communism. The quaint notion that all work is somehow of equal value whether it's done by a master or a novice sounds like something Karl Marx would say.
Re:Such is the nature of the beast... (Score:3, Insightful)
... and "open source programmers" never get paid. Right.
--Bruce Fields
Re:amazing but slow on a large network (Score:1, Insightful)
right.
Re:Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
"Settings"
"Print Manager"
Right-click -- "Add Printer/Class"
Choose connection (from local ports to various network settings)
Choose brand/model
Test
Done.
Oddly, it's *very* similar to the steps needed to set a printer up in Windows.
What is so difficult with this?
(All that and I didn't even mention that I use Gentoo for my distro!)
(DOH!)
Re:Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying there aren't any HP devices that differ from this, but in the last 8 years, I have never encountered anything different.
If you search HP's forums, there are many threads that deal with this. Hell, if it was under warranty, you could even have called HP's support.
This is what I find funny about "I've been a (insert OS) admin for X years" comments on slashdot. I *always* see them in front of "It took me (insane amount of time) to do (quite simple thing) because I refused to ask for help!" comments.
I'm not meaning this as a troll. You can take it as a slam against you, or not. I'm just stating what I've observed.
Re:Configuring CUPS (Score:4, Insightful)
A) Not have to find all of the varied repositories for different kinds of software on their own; it should come with a huge trusted repository list, and potentially update that list on its own if the user requests it.
B) Not be stuck by physical dependancies. If a compiled version is not available that matches your setup, it should automatically download either a source version and compile it (and get the necessary libraries), or a standalone version.
C) If there is an error in the install of a package (regardless of the method the installation is attempting), it should try a lesser version of the same package.
Windows has a big advantage on Linux when it comes to installation because we have so many versions of the same libraries floating around. We need to fix this.
The point (Score:5, Insightful)
The user plugs in a printer. There is no step two. If there was no printer before, the printer is now the default. There is no need to tell the machine about it this, no GUI popping up, no config programs to run. If there was a previous default printer the user can right-click its icon representation in some control center to make it the default, otherwise it is just a choice in the print preview dialog.
Stop bitching that CUPS is good enough. Informing us that tool X does what you want it to do is of no worth whatsoever. That is simply taking the easy road. Open Source can, and will given enough time, do better. By failing to see the problems you are just hurting Open Source by your zealotry.
Whether some other operating system does it in some other way is completely irrelevant. The nature of Open Source is to iteratively approach a perfect state. There is no part too small or insignificant, or grand and important, that we can not improve it. Every single wording of every label is open to refinement, every padding issue of every widget open to tweaking to perfection. And when the system plain sucks we rip it out and do it again. The only constant factor in Open Source is change and improvement, 365 days a year 24 hours a day. The shop never closes, on Christmas day there is a million CVS checkins around the globe. That is what Open Source is all about. I put very real code where my mouth is, if your contribution to Open Source consists of "well, it works for me", SHUT THE FUCK UP, in your shortsightedness you hurt Open Source and I as a developer will rather have 5 guys pointing out flaws than you promoting the status quo.
Where did you get Windows from? Lets be better! (Score:2, Insightful)
No, actually, he doesn't. He doesn't talk about Windows at all in fact! He talks about open source always going for the better. So why'o'why shouldn't we have a better implementation and printingsystem than Windows?
Do you mean we should wait until Windows gets this (or any other) feature and then implement it by copying the exact same behaviour? -- Well, you can do that - but I actually think it's a good thing getting cups better than any other printingsystem! And also doing that first.
With opinions like that floating around, no wonder people say that FOSS is only copying properitary software.
Re:Wonder why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though Eric Raymond was talking about the RedHat CUPS tool, I'll bite (YHBT, etc etc.)
The webadmin tool (http://localhost:631) is not well thought out. You start off logged out, but there is no little 'logged in / logged out' indicator like 99.9% of commercial websites have. [tt]However, in the CUPS team's favor, most OSS drops the ball on providing useful user feedback like a login status indicator (see the many Wiki's out there that suffer from this.) But then, I write software for a living, so the software I write has to work or I don't get paid.[/tt]
Furethermore, replacing or adding to the clickable'Administration' label in the webmin interface should be a clickable 'login' and/or 'logout' label. Right now, you must know to click on 'Administration' to force CUPS to prompt for a login. A lot of stuff requiring user login will simply fail. The messages on failing are unhelpful and poorly written. If any actual GUI modeling had been done, the CUPS team would have a more usable design. CUPS needs to put some text telling you that 'you need to be logged in' with a login link on the 'can't do that' error page IF not being logged in is the problem.
Re:The point (Score:1, Insightful)
Bach is there to enjoy AS IS.
Natalie Portman is there to enjoy AS IS.
But a system as complex and mystifying as a kitchen-sink printing system that makes it hard to get the first ions of ink onto a page is a living nightmare. It is not there to enjoy AS IS.
Absolutely every piece of software I've ever used could use improvement, if only in how I can learn about it. Here I'm saying that CUPS might be a towering monument to the prowess of its makers, but can somebody please show me some docs which aren't trivial or don't assume I was a network printer admin for 12 years prior? BrowseAllow? Who's doing the browsing? THIS machine? The other machine? Just spell it out at least once, so I don't have to wonder with every setting.
Trust me, because you got it to work in a particular setup does NOT mean that it is capable of handling all setups, or more importantly, even if it is capable of handling setups of all varieties, show me buttons to push that will get me there, or show me some docs which don't assume that my situation falls into one of 10 categories.
I want EXPLANATION, not cookbook narratives that assume knowledge of printer classes nor showers of buzzwords that leave me confused, not enlightned.
Problem solving, please, not a million cries of "I got it to work, so you're probably just a big wanky-wank with an attitude problem".
No, I just have a less-than-trivial problem to solve, and nowhere I have looked helps. I'm left to trial and error methods on $100,000 systems. How dignified is that?
With all that said, does anyone know how I can have one machine be the negotiator between some printers and all other computers, and have this machine's logs actually show which users sent which jobs? That would be swell. Thanks.
Re:Where did you get Windows from? Lets be better! (Score:3, Insightful)
Allow them to specify those things when they go to print a document, not when they plug in a printer.
The only thing that should happen when you plug in a printer is the computer gives you some sort of thumbs-up indication a printer was just plugged in, and everything's ready to go.