On Wed, 19 Aug 2020 at 17:59, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
It depends. It can be slow. It's certainly complicated!
That's a decent summary of my experience with printers over the past 30 years!
[.. snip lots of good stuff ..]
Then there's another wrinkle. By default CUPS waits until it has received the whole file and for the printer to be online before spooling to the server, and sending the print job. Windows does the opposite and so seems to print faster. This is what the "?waitprinter=false&waitjob=false" parameters do - sends the file to the server's cups even if the printer is off-line, and start printing IMMEDIATELY, without waiting for the whole file to be transferred.
This might well be part of it. (Given that some of the stuff I'm trying to print is going to take the printer several minutes per sheet once it starts, as long as the spooling is faster than the printing it makes sense to be sending immediately). But it's not the whole story - I've certainly had situations where it could be 30 minutes without so much as a peep from the printer but my Linux box is apparently still working on it, whereas even the slowest prints are maybe 5 mins per sheet start to finish via Windows.
YMMV of course. It depends where your printer is and how it is connected to your network.
Fair point, i should have started with that!
All my printers (2 at work, 2 at home currently, but all the ones that have been in their places before them for as far back as I can remember) have been direct network (cabled), ie my PC/laptop is talking to the IP of the printer directly without an intermediate Linux or Windows box.
What is the best way to see "inside" the printing process and see what is taking the time?
Based only on the times taken, it *feels* like Windows is sending printing commands (eg PCL or something bespoke to the printer via the Windows printer driver) whereas the Linux box is turning everything into a high DPI bitmap and then trying to manage that - ie one is sending vastly more "data" to the printer than the other for the same desired outcome.