FC3 as a printserver

[Phil Schaffner]

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 08:58 -0500, Phil Schaffner wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 03:37 -0600, Tim Waugh wrote:

[OT - wondering why the message I posted at 08:58am EST didn't get
echoed back here from fedora-list until after 12:00pm, while lots of
later posts showed up in between.  Have noticed some posts show up
quickly while other take hours.  ???]

> > > A matter of opinion...
> > > 
> > > http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
> > > 
> > > The destructive behavior of the GUI and automatic/silent rewriting
> > of
> > > config files make CUPS a royal PITA for non-trivial
> configurations.
> > 
> > If you don't like the way system-config-printer works, 'rpm -e' it.
> 
> Well, that's not really a great option either.  Core system tools
> should
> strive for the "just works" gold seal.  If they are obviously short of
> the mark they should be improved or replaced, not leave the user up
> the
> proverbial creek without a [viable] paddle.

Just want to clarify - it's not particularly system-config-printer
that's the problem.  It's a pretty nice tool.  Some problems are:

. cupsdconf (which can be blamed on kdelibs - not system-config-printers
or cups) and its habit of clobbering hand-made changes
to /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

. figuring out how to give web access for management to other hosts
using cupsdconf and/or hand editing

. limiting cups browsing so hundreds of printers (scattered all over 800
acres - on our intranet) don't show up for all users, without breaking
necessary/desirable functionality

. confusion between managing system-config-printer installed printers
and those configured via the cups web interface

. getting cups and samba to play nicely together so Windoze users can
use cups printers

...

Like I said - non-trivial configurations.  Didn't have any significant
problems getting things working nicely on a little home network with
FC2, FC3, XP, and W2K behind a router and cable modem.

Phil