> That's an interesting point, but it's sad, too, because it makes Linux > the limping straggler following behind the great M$ iron horse > Window$. Or is there an alternative for Linux that does print > photo-quality photo images? > > Would it be so difficult to send the source to the major distributors > (RH, SUSE, to name two) so they could include quality printer support > in the distros? (Yeah, I know, more work for the distro developers, > but that IS the business they're in....) if its open source, the kernel driverss at least need to be adopted by the kernel group. RH at least, has gone on record as saying they don't want to introduce non-kernel-standard drivers any more, and I can't say I blame them. Its almost impossible for 3rd party hardware vendors to support proprietary drivers anymore without making the end user compile them for each kernel rev (and each kernel microrev update breaks said drivers until they are reinstalled). I don't know if Linux has standard APIs for controlling fax modems and page scanners (I only use Unix and Linux as servers, not as a desktop environment). Certainly, these sorts of things never existed in the conventional POSIX view of the world. If it does, then the desktop application for copying/faxing/etc would be relatively hardware independent and could be a seperate generic opensource project.... OTOH, this sort of approach tends to reduce all hardware to lowest common denominator functionality.