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Networking Printers FAQ
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<blockquote data-quote="cwa107" data-source="post: 391004" data-attributes="member: 24098"><p>Thanks. This was one of my very first struggles as a switcher. I've literally spent days researching the issue and trying to figure out how OS X's printing subsystems work. What you see here is the fruit of that labor. </p><p></p><p>In my case, the problem printer was a Canon i550. I have two Canon printers, an MP500 all-in-one that is directly attached to my desktop PC and the i550. The i550 is an older, somewhat basic InkJet printer that does a very decent job with just about everything. For years, I'd been using it attached to a Linksys PSUS4 print server and sharing it amongst my Windows machines. </p><p></p><p>I never had a lick of trouble with it until I tried to connect the Mac to it. I literally dissected the Mac driver for the i550 and figured out how the components work. That's when I noticed that there are two components to most non-Gutenprint Mac drivers. One is the driver itself, and the other is the port interface. One can only assume that the drivers are built this way because OS X doesn't provide a framework for interfacing printers to various types of ports.</p><p></p><p>That's no big surprise because Apple jettisoned the Parallel/Centronics port years ago and most network printers (until recently) had their own built-in print servers, leaving USB as the most oft-used interface type for consumer-grade printers. My guess is that Apple assumed that most anyone who developed a network-based printer could just write their driver to handle which port it was going to use.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that nowadays, everyone has a network in their home. Most people want to share a single printer amongst several different machines. Not only that, but lots of companies are making external print servers that make printers that were never intended to be networked, network-able.</p><p></p><p>One thing that Windows does very well is port-handling. That hasn't always been the case, but if you look at the properties of any Windows printer, you'll see a "Ports" tab. Here you can redirect output in several different ways - and it's all handled by the operating system, leaving the driver to worry only about translating application data to a format the printer can understand. In that Ports tab, you can build a new network port, dynamically change the existing port (say you want to switch from USB to Parallel or vice-versa) or even pool printers to offset workloads. </p><p></p><p>Don't get me wrong, I love OS X - and in most other ways, it is the superior OS. It's just this one thing that I think Microsoft got very right. Printing subsystems in OS X seem to be almost an afterthought. It's as if Apple looked at BSD and said "hey - that functionality is already in there, let's just add a pretty GUI to it and call it a day". When the market started to demand a little more functionality, they decided to integrate Gutenprint/Gimp-print (which does give a lot more latitude), but not revamp the existing APIs.</p><p></p><p>What I'm currently wondering about is how Apple's Airport Extreme, with it's built-in USB Print server works. My guess is that Apple has some accompanying software that does a hack to allow USB-centric drivers to work with networked printers. If that's the case, I can't see why it wouldn't be possible to integrate some of that magic into Leopard. Let's hope that's the case. I'm almost tempted to buy an AE just to see how well it works in that respect.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="cwa107, post: 391004, member: 24098"] Thanks. This was one of my very first struggles as a switcher. I've literally spent days researching the issue and trying to figure out how OS X's printing subsystems work. What you see here is the fruit of that labor. In my case, the problem printer was a Canon i550. I have two Canon printers, an MP500 all-in-one that is directly attached to my desktop PC and the i550. The i550 is an older, somewhat basic InkJet printer that does a very decent job with just about everything. For years, I'd been using it attached to a Linksys PSUS4 print server and sharing it amongst my Windows machines. I never had a lick of trouble with it until I tried to connect the Mac to it. I literally dissected the Mac driver for the i550 and figured out how the components work. That's when I noticed that there are two components to most non-Gutenprint Mac drivers. One is the driver itself, and the other is the port interface. One can only assume that the drivers are built this way because OS X doesn't provide a framework for interfacing printers to various types of ports. That's no big surprise because Apple jettisoned the Parallel/Centronics port years ago and most network printers (until recently) had their own built-in print servers, leaving USB as the most oft-used interface type for consumer-grade printers. My guess is that Apple assumed that most anyone who developed a network-based printer could just write their driver to handle which port it was going to use. The problem is that nowadays, everyone has a network in their home. Most people want to share a single printer amongst several different machines. Not only that, but lots of companies are making external print servers that make printers that were never intended to be networked, network-able. One thing that Windows does very well is port-handling. That hasn't always been the case, but if you look at the properties of any Windows printer, you'll see a "Ports" tab. Here you can redirect output in several different ways - and it's all handled by the operating system, leaving the driver to worry only about translating application data to a format the printer can understand. In that Ports tab, you can build a new network port, dynamically change the existing port (say you want to switch from USB to Parallel or vice-versa) or even pool printers to offset workloads. Don't get me wrong, I love OS X - and in most other ways, it is the superior OS. It's just this one thing that I think Microsoft got very right. Printing subsystems in OS X seem to be almost an afterthought. It's as if Apple looked at BSD and said "hey - that functionality is already in there, let's just add a pretty GUI to it and call it a day". When the market started to demand a little more functionality, they decided to integrate Gutenprint/Gimp-print (which does give a lot more latitude), but not revamp the existing APIs. What I'm currently wondering about is how Apple's Airport Extreme, with it's built-in USB Print server works. My guess is that Apple has some accompanying software that does a hack to allow USB-centric drivers to work with networked printers. If that's the case, I can't see why it wouldn't be possible to integrate some of that magic into Leopard. Let's hope that's the case. I'm almost tempted to buy an AE just to see how well it works in that respect. [/QUOTE]
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