Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 - ADMINISTRATION Administration Manual page 128

Standard Printers (Languages Like PCL and ESC/P)
Although these printer languages are quite old, they are still undergoing expansion
to address new features in printers. In the case of known printer languages, the
print system can convert PostScript jobs to the respective printer language with the
help of Ghostscript. This processing stage is referred to as interpreting. The best-
known languages are PCL (which is mostly used by HP printers and their clones)
and ESC/P (which is used by Epson printers). These printer languages are usually
supported by Linux and produce an adequate print result. Linux may not be able
to address some functions of extremely recent and high-end printers, because the
open source developers may still be working on these features. Except for HP de-
veloping HPLIP, there are currently no printer manufacturers who develop Linux
drivers and make them available to Linux distributors under an open source license.
Most of these printers are in the medium price range.
Proprietary Printers (Also Called GDI Printers)
These printers do not support any of the common printer languages. They use their
own undocumented printer languages, which are subject to change when a new
edition of a model is released. Usually only Windows drivers are available for these
printers. See
(page 123) for more information.
Before you buy a new printer, refer to the following sources to check how well the
printer you intend to buy is supported:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/
The OpenPrinting.org printer database.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
The Ghostscript Web page.
/usr/share/doc/packages/ghostscript-library/catalog.devices
List of included drivers.
The online databases always show the latest Linux support status. However, a Linux
distribution can only integrate the drivers available at production time. Accordingly, a
printer currently rated as "perfectly supported" may not have had this status when the
latest SUSE Linux Enterprise Server version was released. Thus, the databases may
not necessarily indicate the correct status, but only provide an approximation.
114 Administration Guide
Section 10.8.1, "Printers without Standard Printer Language Support"