Re: Opinion Sought

["Russell L. Harris" <rlharris@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

         If you are a newcomer to Linux, Slackware is NOT the distribution 
you should be running!  Debian is the most advanced and versatile 
Debian/GNU distribution, while RedHat is the most popular.  Mandrake is 
also in the running, but tends to be quirky, obviously not having the 
quality control of RedHat, much less that of Debian.

         Printing in Linux currently is undergoing a long-needed 
transformation from a cobbled-together assemblage of ill-fitting components 
to a properly-designed system.  RedHat installs by default the LPRng ("LPR 
next-generation") system, which is quite complex (being a rework of the 
ancient LPR system), but stable and secure.  Mandrake installs by default 
the CUPS ("common Linux printing system," which appears to be the system to 
which most Linux distributions will ultimately switch.  Debian defaults to 
the old LPR system, but provides both LPRng and CUPS.

         My recommendation to you is that you switch to Debian and 
CUPS.  CUPS has its own, integral magic filer; thus, with CUPS you will 
have no need of apsfilter.  Being a relatively new development, CUPS 
recently has undergone several revisions; for this reason, I recommend that 
you install the testing distribution of Debian ("Woody"), which is quite 
stable, and which ships with CUPS 1.1.12.  Debian maintains three 
distributions:  stable ("Potato"), testing ("Woody"), and unstable ("Sid"); 
when Woody is declared stable, Sid will become the testing distribution.

RLH


At 06:51 PM 1/13/02 +0000, you wrote:
>I am a relative newcomer to computing, a newcomer to GNU/Linux, and a very
>newcomer to Slackware, (Slackware 8).
>
>I tried to get my HP710C to work with the version of Apsfilter installed in
>Slackware 8, and failed. Being a newcomer I do not know why.
>
>I have downloaded the latest (7.2.1) version of Apsfilter, and the version
>(6.52) of Ghostscript, and pnm2ppa. Would I be better off if I started
>again with a new printer, and if so could you advise which HP printer would
>co-operate with apsfilter 7.2.1 best? It is my birthday soon, so I might be
>able to persuade my wife to get me a new printer.
>--
>John Seago
>Change is not synonymous with `progress'.