On Wed, 2018-03-07 at 08:00 +1100, Stephen Morris wrote:
I have my home multifunction device connected to my router, so it
is
effectively a network device.
I suppose should be really specific and say, is that an ethernet (or
WiFi) connection between printer and router, or is the printer
connected to a USB port on your router (which may entail fun and games
as how the router presents a printer to the network).
I need the Epson driver for Fedora and Ubuntu as cups has no support
for my device whatsoever. Having installed the driver, with no
printers defined at all in cups, if I go to Add Printers, cups sees
two network definitions for my device, one using lpd and one using
dnssd.
lpd is the old pre-CUPS-era way of doing things, if I recall correctly.
dnssd is one of those ZeroConf, Bonjour, Avahi protocols. One of those
systems would have to be working properly for that to work as intended.
If I select the lpd definition, cups adds that printer once I select
the driver, if I then go to Printers, with cups-browsed active a
second definition has automagically appeared that is using ippd,
which the definition says is driverless.
I can't recall you saying what the printer actually is. You've said
you've installed an Epson driver, perhaps it doesn't name itself in a
unique manner? Perhaps it's not really a printing "driver", just
making it appear to the system? If the printer directly accepts
PostScript, PDF, or one of a few common languages, perhaps CUPS does
the actual print driving.
None of these drivers impress me with their level of support for the
printer. The printer is capable of printing at 4800x1200, but all of
the drivers only offer a print resolution of "Standard" or "High".
If
I'm using Windows and doing a print from Photoshop Elements, Elements
tells me the standard print resolution is 300 dpi and the high print
resolution is 600 dpi, and selecting the different Epson paper types
make no difference.
A lot of printers are just 600 dpi printers, with software doing some
pretending to make the printing look crisper.
Selecting paper types may make no noticeable difference, it depends on
what the printer does with the information, it could affect any of:
Changing dithering patterns, slightly changing distance between the
print head and the paper, changing drying times, which inks it uses,
changing toner temperatures, simply selecting the right paper tray to
print from or too (e.g. cardstock requiring a straight through path),
offering/refusing double-sided printing, the range of print resolutions
it offers.
I distinctly hate having to deal with printers. Firstly you have to
get it working, which can be a nightmare, even on their supported OSs.
A year or two after getting one you may find it impossible to get ink
or toner, or it's become ridiculously expensive. Or they only supplied
a badly working driver for an old OS that can't be used on a newer one.
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