Re: SEUL: Distrib: Some thought

[Greg Bell <winston@atlantic.net>]

For those that do not know about it there is a program called alien that
can be downloaded from at least the debian site.  What this nifty little
program does is allows the user to install any old package that is
wanted/needed weather it be debian, red hat, or slackware.  Don't know
about the updating issue when using this program but it is definately
worth a look at for SUEL.

On another point, many of the participants of the list seem to think
that latex is the way to go for documentation (I myself have mixed
feelings on this point) but there is a program called Lyx that, at least
as far as I have looked at it allows the user the freedom of a
wordprocessor while at the same time creating a latex document which
brings up a point that I think should be looked at.  Reguardless of ones
feelings towards TeX, LaTex, et al, I get the distinct impression that
for the greater percentage of linux users there is not a device
independent printer(?) available to them.  Would it be possible (or
worth the effort) to create seperate drivers for specific printers???

At first sight this may seem like a nitpicky type of idea, but consider
a moment.  One of the reasons for owning a computer is to produce
correspondance and with linux unless you have extremely deep pockets/use
a companies computer/use a schools computer it is difficult to print in
linux.  First you have the printer daemon, then you have somekind of
filter program that 'doctors' your data before submission to the printer
daemon (which I found difficult to set up).

For the targets of SEUL there are basically 3 types of printers
available.  1) daisy wheel, 2) inkjet and 3)laser.  From my observations
of various catalogs and reading the linux newsgroups the daisy wheel
printer is almost a thing of the past and the laser printer, while
gaining in popularity fast comes in second to the ink-jet type printer. 
So my idea is that a printer deamon be developed that would allow for
the insertion of that information that is specific to a type of printer
so that to install a new printer all one would have to do is point to a
new printer   which could be done on a command line type interface.

The information for the type printers is found in the printer
documentation and shouldn't be all that difficult to code.  Just a
thought
                      Greg

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