CUPS Printing System Open-Source Development Has Seemingly Dried Up

[sandy8925]

Best thing I ever did was to get a decent, multifunction b/w laser printer/scanner unit (Brother DCP-7055). Toner is very cheap, does not dry and laser prints very quickly. If I were to replace it I'd basically like a network-enabled version of it. I'm not sure what the state of network scanners is in Linux though.

I have a HP scanner/printer, works well with Xsane. I may have used Skanlite with it too.

[Sonadow]

First of all, you should look for driverless IPP printers. As AirPrint (the method iPhones use to print) is a flavor of driverless IPP printing and Linux also supports this flavor, simply look for AirPrint-capable devices. Other flavors are IPP Everywhere, Mopria, and Wi-Fi Direct Print, but they are less often advertised. They are also supported by Linux. And if you go with a multi-function device, if it does driverless IPP in some form it also offers driverless scanning and IPP Fax Out. So you get everything working.
All the existing legacy free software drivers will get converted into Printer Applications soon and we have even started working on concepts to wrap proprietary classic drivers into Printer Applications.
The printer manufacturers (at least most of them) are organized in the Printing Working Group (PWG) and the standards like IPP come from this group. OpenPrinting and the PWG work closely together and we have an annual meeting. So the manufacturers are aware of the deprecation and soon removal of PPDs and the new standard way of Printer Applications.

Till

I'm looking at the Canon imageCLASS LBP623Cdw

The product claims to support Canon PRINT Business, Canon Print Service, Google Cloud Print™, Apple® AirPrint®, Mopria® Print Service

Does this mean I can use this printer for wireless and driverless printing in Linux without CUPS? If so, how should I go about doing it?

[Till Kamppeter]

I'm looking at the Canon imageCLASS LBP623Cdw.

The product claims to support Canon PRINT Business, Canon Print Service, Google Cloud Print™, Apple® AirPrint®, Mopria® Print Service

Does this mean I can use this printer for wireless and driverless printing in Linux without CUPS? If so, how should I go about doing it?

As it supports Apple® AirPrint® and Mopria® Print Service it works with as driverless IPP printers. These are two of the 4 driverless IPP flavors. This means that on a standard distro (using CUPS and cups-browsed) it often simply sets up automatically. If not, you can easily set it up with the CUPS web interface or system-config-printer. Under the discovered printers your printer model should appear under the network printers, as IPP printer. Then under the drivers, if you get offered to choose one, select the "driverless" one.

Scanning works starting from SANE 1.0.29, with the "escl"backend, or if you get the separate "sane-airscan" backend (you find in on GitHub, binaries for all major distros are available). And the upcoming Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy) supports even sending faxes (if the device supports it).

Till

[Sonadow]

As it supports Apple® AirPrint® and Mopria® Print Service it works with as driverless IPP printers. These are two of the 4 driverless IPP flavors. This means that on a standard distro (using CUPS and cups-browsed) it often simply sets up automatically. If not, you can easily set it up with the CUPS web interface or system-config-printer. Under the discovered printers your printer model should appear under the network printers, as IPP printer. Then under the drivers, if you get offered to choose one, select the "driverless" one.

Scanning works starting from SANE 1.0.29, with the "escl"backend, or if you get the separate "sane-airscan" backend (you find in on GitHub, binaries for all major distros are available). And the upcoming Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy) supports even sending faxes (if the device supports it).

Till

So we still need CUPS. I was hoping that we could finally be rid of this layer...

[printman]

So we still need CUPS. I was hoping that we could finally be rid of this layer...

Yes, CUPS handles spooling and conversion of print files to a format the printer will accept. Most printers can only print a single file at a time and don't support the full range of formats used on Linux.

[SystemCrasher]

Apple is toxic for opensource ppl I guess. Sure, they throw some source dumps here and there - but it doesn't makes opensource community.