Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> +1. I think this will be a big help.
>
> I've a few questions (which probably count as not this case) though:
>
> 1) Upgrades -- will upgrades (or pkg image-update) switch the service,
> or leave the existing setting?
Venky can correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe that the
intention is to enable CUPS on fresh install and honor the prior print
service selection on image-update.
>
> 2) Are there any plans to enhance CUPS to distributed network printer
> configuration via NIS? Or is there a replacement for this service
> already present? (I guess this is what Bonjour is intended for?)
There are no plans for NIS. CUPS supports LDAP, DNS-SD, SLP, and CUPS
Browse protocols for print queue advertisement/discovery. Since CUPS is
the "de facto" standard print service on *nix these days, it's
interoperable with other systems. Our name service support support isn't.
>
> 3) What about Trusted Printing? What are the issues here? I'd be
> interested to understand why CUPS can't do this; feel free to email me
> out of band with more information.
There are a couple of patches to CUPS to support labeling under
SELinux. The approach taken by the patches is similar to the scheduler
changes we made to lpsched for TX a while back. They are being reworked
to support Solaris as well.
>
> 4) Forms support? Does anyone still need or use this? Seems like
> possibly this is a feature that could just fall by the way side....
There still appear to be occasional bugs filed against forms. We don't
know how heavily they might be used and whether or not the media support
in CUPS would sufficiently address the needs of the forms users that
might exist. The page level printers that are more commonly used today
are pretty much useless with the LP forms feature.
>
> I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd like to see use reach the
> point where we could just ditch the LP system altogether -- its a
> maintenance headache, and its hard to use.
For reasons too numerous to list here, I think that we all would.
Because we have been reluctant to deprecate printing features (even
fairly obscure ones), we haven't simply asked to drop LP all together.
Perhaps we should be announcing it's EOL again (Solaris 2.3 was a long
time ago (PSARC/1993/348)) and really dropping it this time.
-Norm
>
> - Garrett
>
>> I am sponsoring the following fast-track for Venky TV.
>> The case requests Micro binding and the timeout is 10/02/2009.
>>
>>
>> 1. Introduction
>>
>> 1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
>>
>> CUPS as the default print service
>>
>> 1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
>>
>> Venky TV <venkytv at sun.com>
>>
>> 1.3. Date of This Document:
>>
>> 09 Sep 2009
>>
>> 1.3.1. Date this project was conceived:
>>
>> 15 Mar 2009
>>
>> 1.4. Name of Major Document Customer(s)/Consumer(s):
>> 1.4.1. The PAC or CPT you expect to review your project:
>>
>> Solaris PAC
>>
>> 1.4.2. The ARC(s) you expect to review your project:
>>
>> PSARC
>>
>> 1.4.3. The Director/VP who is "Sponsoring" this project:
>>
>> Chris Armes <chris.armes at sun.com>
>>
>> 1.4.4. The name of your business unit:
>>
>> OP/N1 RPE
>>
>> 1.5. Email Aliases:
>> 1.5.1. Responsible Manager: Joseph George <joe.g at sun.com>
>> 1.5.2. Responsible Engineer: Venky TV <venkytv at sun.com>
>> 1.5.3. Marketing Manager:
>> 1.5.4. Interest List:
>>
>>
>> 2. Project Summary
>>
>> 2.1. Project Description:
>>
>> The projects proposes to switch from LP to CUPS as the default
>> print service. The present default LP service will be retained
>> for backward compatibility.
>>
>> Targeted release: OpenSolaris 2010.02
>> Requested binding: Minor
>>
>> 2.2. Risks and Assumptions:
>>
>> Some Solaris LP features like Trusted printing, NIS support,
>> Forms printing are not available in CUPS at present. Customers
>> who need any of these functionalities will need to switch back
>> to LP.
>>
>>
>> 3. Business Summary
>>
>> 3.1. Problem Area:
>>
>> LP has fallen behind CUPS in printer support, usability and
>> manageablity in recent times, for example, with features like
>> printer discovery using Bonjour, PDF workflow, etc.
>>
>> Also, now that CUPS is the de facto standard in the open source
>> world, lots of key open source applications like Ghostscript and
>> Samba are building in support for the CUPS API.
>>
>> 3.3. Business Justification:
>>
>> Customer demand for CUPS, printer support, usability and
>> manageability. Switching over as CUPS as default presents a
>> better user experience to customers, and longer term reduction
>> in support costs.
>>
>> 3.4. Competitive Analysis:
>>
>> Almost all Linux distributions and MacOS/X use CUPS as the
>> default print service.
>>
>> 3.5. Opportunity Window/Exposure:
>>
>> 3.6. How will you know when you are done?:
>>
>> New Solaris and OpenSolaris installations will ship with CUPS as
>> the default print service. CUPS will be the only print service
>> bundled with the OpenSolaris CD.
>>
>>
>> 4. Technical Description:
>>
>> 4.1. Details:
>>
>> PSARC/2008/130 has already introduced a service to switch
>> between the Solaris LP and CUPS services. The service detects
>> the currently configured print service automatically. The
>> desktop also currently sets up the right printer management
>> tools depending on the active print service.
>>
>> To enable CUPS as the default service, all that needs to be done
>> is to set the "general/active" propery in the CUPS SMF manifest
>> to "true".
>>
>> 4.2. Bug/RFE Number(s):
>>
>> 6872820 Switch to CUPS as the default print service
>>
>> 4.3. In Scope:
>>
>> 4.4. Out of Scope:
>>
>> 4.5. Interfaces:
>>
>> CUPS and LP interfaces are listed in PSARC 2008/130.
>>
>> This case does not introduce any new interfaces nor does it
>> remove any.
>>
>> 4.6. Doc Impact:
>>
>> Documentation will be based on that provided by the CUPS
>> community. Additional documentation will be necessary to
>> outline the process of installing LP for customers who want to
>> switch back to it, as well as the process of switching between
>> the two services (print-service(1M)). CUPS being the default
>> print
>> service will also need to be noted in the release notes.
>>
>> 4.7. Admin/Config Impact:
>>
>> Administration changes required by CUPS are already in place.
>>
>> 4.8. HA Impact:
>>
>> None
>>
>> 4.9. I18N/L10N Impact:
>>
>> None
>>
>> 4.10. Packaging & Delivery:
>>
>> There are no packaging changes. Install will now deliver CUPS
>> instead of LP.
>>
>> 4.11. Security Impact:
>>
>> None
>>
>> 4.12. Dependencies:
>>
>> None
>>
>>
>> 5. Reference Documents:
>>
>> PSARC/2008/130 CUPS 1.3.6
>>
>> 6851083 modify print-service to switch running printer detection
>> daemon correctly
>>
>>
>> 6. Resources and Schedule:
>>
>> 6.1. Projected Availability:
>>
>> FY10 Q2
>>
>> 6.2. Cost of Effort:
>>
>> Total: 6 weeks
>> Development: 2 weeks
>> Documentation: 4 weeks
>>
>> 6.3. Cost of Capital Resources:
>>
>> 6.4. Product Approval Committee requested information:
>> 6.4.1. Consolidation or Component Name:
>>
>> SFW
>>
>> 6.4.3. Type of CPT Review and Approval expected:
>>
>> FastTrack
>>
>> 6.4.4. Project Boundary Conditions:
>>
>> 6.4.5. Is this a necessary project for OEM agreements:
>>
>> No
>>
>> 6.4.6. Notes:
>>
>> 6.4.7. Target RTI Date/Release:
>>
>> Nevada/SFW Build 127
>>
>> 6.4.8. Target Code Design Review Date:
>>
>> 6.4.9. Update approval addition:
>>
>> 6.5. ARC review type:
>>
>> FastTrack
>>
>> 6.6. ARC Exposure:
>>
>> Open
>>
>> 7. Prototype Availability:
>> 7.1. Prototype Availability:
>>
>> Now
>
