SUMMARY: Netscape printing on Solaris

From: Marc S. Gibian (gibian@stars1.hanscom.af.mil)
Date: Wed Jan 21 1998 - 09:05:27 CST


I asked if Netscape on Solaris 2.x printed only Postscript, answer is yes, and
how to print this to non-Postscript printers, answer is almost universally
Ghostscript. Other filters were mentioned, but Ghostscript is by far the most
common.

I am a bit concerned about the licensing issues surrounding Ghostscript as it
would have to be bundled into an end-user install of a US Air Force owned
software product produced by my customer (USAF themselves).

It also strikes me as unfortunate that so many users must depend on a print
filter not bundled into Solaris to do their printing. If Sun is serious about
competing with NT for the server market, I think they need to rethink their
printing strategy, particularly since NeWSprinter has been discontinued (not in
itself a problem, but there is now nothing from Sun to fill the void).

My thanks to the multitudes, thus far consisting of:

Jeff Wasilko <jeffw@smoe.org>
Chris Phillips <chris@scooter.Canada.Sun.COM>
Casper Dik <casper@holland.Sun.COM>
"V. Q. Hoang" <vqh@dwrock.dw.lucent.com>
David Wolfskill <david@xtend.net>
Joe Pruett <joey@q7.com>
Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Harry Levinson <levinson@ll.mit.edu>
George Cameron <george@biomed.abdn.ac.uk>
baumann@proton.llumc.edu
Dave Wreski <dave@nic.com>
Reto Lichtensteiger <rali@meitca.com>
Jochen Bern <bern@TI.Uni-Trier.DE>
"D.J. Gregor" <dj@gregor.com>
Aleksandar Milivojevic <alex@srce.hr>
Dieter Gobbers <gobbers@faw.uni-ulm.de>
James Neal - HandiCAT <neal@ee.pdx.edu>
John D Groenveld <groenvel@cse.psu.edu>

-Marc

Marc S. Gibian
COMSYS Information Technology Services phone: (617) 377-6350
PRISM/TFS email: gibian@stars1.hanscom.af.mil
                           or is it: gibian@hanscom.af.mil
                        well, maybe: gibianm@hanscom.af.mil
              and if all else fails: marc.gibian@acm.org



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