Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 11-05-2007, Installation Manual

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Some manufacturers provide proprietary drivers for their printers. The disadvantage of
proprietary printer drivers is that there is no guarantee that these work with the installed
print system and that they are suitable for the various hardware platforms. In contrast,
printers that support a standard printer language do not depend on a special print system
version or a special hardware platform.
Instead of spending time trying to make a proprietary Linux driver work, it may be
more cost-effective to purchase a supported printer. This would solve the driver problem
once and for all, eliminating the need to install and configure special driver software
and obtain driver updates that may be required due to new developments in the print
system.
23.9.2 No Suitable PPD File Available for a
PostScript Printer
If the
manufacturer-PPDs
package does not contain any suitable PPD file for a
PostScript printer, it should be possible to use the PPD file from the driver CD of the
printer manufacturer or download a suitable PPD file from the Web page of the printer
manufacturer.
If the PPD file is provided as a zip archive (.zip) or a self-extracting zip archive (
.exe
),
unpack it with
unzip
. First, review the license terms of the PPD file. Then use the
cupstestppd
utility to check if the PPD file complies with “Adobe PostScript
Printer Description File Format Specification, version 4.3.” If the utility returns “FAIL,”
the errors in the PPD files are serious and are likely to cause major problems. The
problem spots reported by
cupstestppd
should be eliminated. If necessary, ask the
printer manufacturer for a suitable PPD file.
Printer Operation 453