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Originally Posted by -Thomas-
Hi folks,
I just converted my iLiad into a network printer  |
Very cool! I've been dying to do something like this, but I'm not yet satisfied with the connectivity options (more below). I have a couple questions about how you've done this:
Quote:
- I've ported GhostScript, including ps2pdf, to the iLiad (files coming soon, I'm still packaging
 ),
- I configured ajnorth's Samba to offer me a printer (which calls the ps2pdf script)
- And finally I installed a standard PostScript printing driver on my notebook, accessing the Samba printer
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GhostScript strikes me as a heavyweight solution (though I'm not sure if we have any better way to output a PDF file in the Open Source world) -- how large is the installation? Does it seem especially slow?
The biggest issue I have with Samba is the fact that I put my iLiad and my laptop on many different networks and sometimes they can't be on the same one. Frankly, this makes Wi-Fi a terrible option for me, though I hope Ad Hoc networking+Zeroconf might make things easier. If I'm reading things correctly, you have to connect to the shared 'printer' by its IP address -- is that correct?
Even better would be
a tiny Bluetooth adapter and a software stack to make the iLiad look like a printer. (Though I'm more likely to send a Mac OS X-generated PDF file via Bluetooth file exchange using Automator, because that's dead easy.) Even better than that would be a pop-up window on the iLiad once the file is received to let me put the file where I want it (and give it a new title, etc.)
Enough about my crazy ideas and complete lack of time to work on them. This is really cool news, and I'm looking forward to poking at the code when you post it.
Once upon a time, I remember Windows could auto-download a driver for a properly configured printer via Samba -- I think it's time to figure out how that works.