Re: [9fans] printing from Plan 9

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>]

Richard Miller writes:

> Before replacing my expiring inkjet printer I thought I'd ask
> the list: does anyone still use lp(1) nowadays, and are there
> printers currently on the market which work well with Plan 9?

As others have mentioned, life is far too short for CUPS.

For Plan9 printing I have always just used a laser printer that
natively supports Postscript.  You pay a bit more for Postscript,
but that pays for itself immediately in not having to dick around
with CUPS, gs, or gawd knows what else to get the hardware talking
to whatever system you've plugged it into.

I currently have an HP Laserjet M402dn.  It speaks Postscript 3,
prints up to 40 PPM, supports duplex printing, and talks lpd or
"virtual serial port" on port 9100.  CAD$350 from Staples.

I've never had any trouble making these consumer HP Postscript
printers interface with lp(1).  I configure them as an lpd printer,
and then point all the other hosts on the network at the Plan9 CPU
server as their default 'printer'.  This lets me use the lp(1)
content conversion filters on all the other hosts -- I find lp's
behaviour to be far superior to anything that MacOS and the others
provide.

If you really need an inkjet (e.g. for colour), I would still
recommend finding something that natively supports Postscript.
Failing that, you're likely going to have to connect the inkjet to
something like a Mac or a Linux host.  But as long as you can
configure the print host to listen on the lpd port and handle
incoming Postscript jobs correctly, you should just be able to
configure it as a networked Postscript printer.

--lyndon