Re: Firefox stability?

[Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Tue, 10 Jan 2017, John D. Baker wrote:
> I have an mp3 recording of OpenBSD developers describing "cups" thusly:
>  "You mean that thing that breaks printing completely?"
> ;)

I believe it.

<printer rant>

For folks with nice PostScript printers, life was better before CUPS. For 
folks with cheap printers with horrible one-off proprietary emulation 
(like Epson's ESC or even crappy PCL) life was mostly *impossible* before 
CUPS.

So, it totally depends on what kind of printer you were trying to make 
work and what your goals are. If you want a cheap printer from China to 
work with your Unix variant, CUPS may be helpful (unless it craps itself 
or the PPD driver is half-baked).

Of course, support for crap hardware from ignorant and somewhat hostile 
vendors is a separate discussion, one that the OpenBSD guys have been over 
a million times. Sometimes, though, I'm right there with them saying 
"Yeah, screw that vendor. We don't need their stinking hardware and their 
nasty attitude anyhow." That usually means that IT karma will kick in and 
I'll be *certain* to be forced to use that same gear I cursed in some kind 
of job-related no-choice integration.

Personally, I've been burned by and thrown away so many cheap printers 
that about six years ago I invested in a solid-ink printer with PostScript 
3 support. Two things happened after that, I started getting annoyed with 
CUPS (too complicated & insecure for what it actually does for you 
vis-a-vis 'lpd') and I stopped having to constantly swap/buy ink 
cartridges that dry out in less than a month. Overall, I'm sure I've saved 
myself some small amount over the last six years or so. I'd have gone 
through 2-3 inkjets in the same period of time.

Like a lot of guys, I'm old school and honestly like printed materials, 
but I freakin' hate printers. I especially dislike having to support crap 
printers. They can be very frustrating.

</rant>

-Swift