Glossary

Stampa

ACLs

Abbreviation for Access Control Lists; ACLs are used to check for the access by a given (authenticated) user. A first rough support for ACLs for printing is available from CUPS; this will be refined in future versions.

See Also Authentication.

AppSocket Protocol

AppSocket is a protocol for the transfer of print data, also frequently called "Direct TCP/IP Printing". Hewlett-Packard® have used AppSocket to add a few minor extensions around it and were very successfull to re-name and market it under the brand "HP® JetDirect"...

See Also HP® JetDirect Protocol, Direct TCP/IP Printing.

APSfilter

APSfilter is used mainly in the context of "classical" UNIX® printing (BSD-style LPD). It is a sophisticated shell script, disguising as an "all-in-one" filtering program. In reality, APSfilter calls "real filters" to do the jobs needed. It sends printjobs automatically through these other filters, based on an initial file-type analysis of the printfile. It is written and maintained by Andreas Klemm. It is similar to Magicfilter and uses mostly Ghostscript for file conversions. Some Linux-Distributions (like SuSE) use APSfilter, others Magicfilter (ad es. Red Hat®), some have both for preference selection (like has *BSD). CUPS has no need for APSfilter, as it runs its own file type recognition (based on MIME types) and applies its own filtering logic.

See Also Ghostscript, Magicfilter, MIME-Types, printcap.

Authentication

Proofing the identity of a certain person (maybe via username/password or by means of a certificate) is often called authentication. Once you are authenticated, you may or may not get access to a requested ressource, possibly based on ACLs.

See Also ACLs.

Bi-directional communication

In the context of printing, a server or a host may receive additional information sent back from the printer (status messages ecc.), either upon a query or unrequested. AppSocket ( = HP® JetDirect), CUPS and IPP do support bi-directional communication, LPR/LPD and BSD-style printing do not...

See Also AppSocket Protocol, CUPS, Direct TCP/IP Printing, HP® JetDirect Protocol, IPP, LPR/LPD printing.

BSD-style Printing

Generic term for different variants of the traditional UNIX® printing method. Its first version appeared in the early 70s on BSD UNIX® and was formally described in RFC 1179 only as late as 1990. At the time when BSD "remote" printing was first designed, printers were serially or otherwise directly connected devices to a host (with the internet hardly consisting of more than 100 nodes!); printers used pre-punched, endless paperbands, fed through by a tractor mechanism, with simple rows of ASCII text mechanically hammered onto the medium, drawn from a cardboard beneath the table, giving it back as a zig-zag folded paper"snake". Remote printing consisted in neighouring host from the next room sending a file asking for printout. How technology has changed! Printers use cut-sheet media, they have built-in intelligence to compute the raster images of pages after pages that are sent to them using one of the powerfull page description languages (PDL), many are network nodes in their own right, with CPU, RAM, HardDisk and an own Operation System and they are hooked to a net with potentially millions of users... It is a vast proof of the flexible UNIX® concept for doing things, that it made "Line Printing" reliably work even under these modern conditions. But time has finally come now to go for something new -- the IPP.

See Also IPP, CUPS, LPR/LPD printing.

CUPS

Abbreviation for Common UNIX Printing System; CUPS is most modern UNIX® and Linux printing system, providing also cross-platform printservices to Microsoft® Windows® and Apple MacOS clients. Based on IPP, it does away with all the pitfalls of old-style BSD printing, providing authentication, encryption and ACLs, plus many more features. At the same time it is backward-compatible enough to serve all legacy clients that are not yet up to IPP via LPR/LPD (BSD-style). CUPS is able to control any PostScript® printer by utilizing the vendor-supplied PPD (PostScript Printer Description file), targetted originally for Microsoft® Windows NT printing only. KDE Printing is most powerful if based on CUPS.

See Also ACLs, Authentication, BSD-style Printing, IPP, KDEPrint, LPR/LPD printing, PPD.

CUPS-FAQ

Presently only available in German (translation is on the way), the CUPS-FAQ is a valuable ressource to answer many question anyone new to CUPS printing might have at first.

See Also KDEPrint Handbook....

CUPS-O-Matic

CUPS-O-Matic was the first "Third Party" plugin for the CUPS printing software. It is available on the Linuxprinting.org website to provide an online PPD-generating service. Together with the companion cupsomatic Perl-Script, that needs to be installed as an additional CUPS backend, it re-directs output from the native pstops filter into a chain of suitable Ghostscript filters. Upon finishing, it gives the resulting data back to a CUPS "backend" for sending them onward to the printer. Thusly, CUPS-O-Matic enables support for any printers known to have worked previously in a "classical" ghostscript environment, if no native CUPS support for that printer is in sight... CUPS-O-Matic is now replaced by the more capable PPD-O-Matic.

See Also cupsomatic, PPD-O-Matic, Foomatic.

cupsomatic

The Perlscript cupsomatic (plus a working Perl installation on your system) is needed to make any CUPS-O-Matic (or PPD-O-Matic) generated PPD work with CUPS. It was written by Grant Taylor, Author of the Linux Printing HOWTO and Maintainer of the printer database at the Linuxprinting.org website.

See Also CUPS-O-Matic, Foomatic, cupsomatic.

Daemon

Abbreviation for Disk and execution monitor; Daemons are present on all UNIX® systems to perform tasks independent of user intervention. Readers more familiar with Microsoft® Windows® might want to compare daemons and the tasks they are responsible with "services". One example of a daemon present on most legacy UNIX® systems is the LPD (Line Printer Daemon); CUPS is widely seen as the successor to LPD in the UNIX® world and it also operates through a daemon.

See Also SPOOLing.

Database, Linuxprinting.org

Already years ago, when Linux printing was still really difficult (only commandline printing was known to most Linux users, no device specific print options were available for doing the jobs), Grant Taylor, Author of the "Linux Printing HOWTO", collected most or the available infos about printers, drivers and filters in his database. With the emerging CUPS concept, extending the use of PPDs even to non-PostScript printers, he realized the potential of this database: if one puts the different datablobs (whith content that could be described along the lines "Which device prints with which ghostscript or other filter how well and what commandline switches are available?") into PPD-compatible files, he could have all the power of CUPS on top of the traditional printer "drivers". This has developed now into a broader concept, known as "Foomatic". Foomatic extends the capabilities of other spoolers than CUPS (LPR/LPD, LPRng, PDQ, PPR) to a certain extend ("stealing" some concepts from CUPS). The Linuxprinting Database is not a Linux-only stop -- people running other UNIX® based OSes (like *BSD or MacOS X) will find valuable infos and software there too.

See Also Foomatic, Linuxprinting.org Database.

Direct TCP/IP Printing

This is a method that often uses TCP/IP port 9100 to connect to the printer. It works with many modern network printers and has a few advantages over LPR/LPD, as it is faster and provides some "backchannel feedback data" from the printer to the host sending the job.

See Also AppSocket Protocol, HP® JetDirect Protocol.

Drivers, Printer Drivers

The term "printer drivers", used in the same sense as on the Microsoft® Windows® platform, is not entirely applicable for a Linux or UNIX® platform. A "driver" functionality is supplied on UNIX® by different modular components working together. At the core are the "filters" converting a given format waeiting for their printing, to another format that is acceptable to the target printer. The filter output is sent to the printer by a "backend".

See Also Filter, PPD.

Easy Software Products

Mike Sweet's company, which has contributed a few substantial software products towards the Free Software community; amongst them the initial version of Gimp-Print,, the EPM software packaging tool and HTMLDOC (used by the "Linux Documentation Project" to build the PDF versions of the HOWTOs) -- but most importantly: CUPS (the 'Common UNIX® Printing System'). ESP finance themselves by selling a commercial version of CUPS, called ESP PrintPro, that includes some professional enhancements.

See Also CUPS, ESP PrintPro, ESP, Gimp-Print.

Encryption

Encryption of confidential data is an all-important issue if you transfer it over the internet or even inside intra-nets. Printing via traditional protocols is not encrypted at all -- it is very easy to tap and eavesdrop ad es. into PostScript® or PCL data transfered over the wire. Thus in the design of IPP the provision was made for an easy plugin of encryption mechanisms (which can be provided by the same means as the encryption standards for HTTP traffic: SSL and TLS.

See Also Authentication, CUPS, IPP, SSL(3) encryption, TLS encryption.

Epson

Epson inkjets belong to the best supported models by Free software drivers as the company was not necessarily as secretive about their devices and handed technical specification documents to developers. The excellent print quality achieved by Gimp-Print on the Styli series of printers can be attributed to this openness. They have also contracted Easy Software Products to maintain an enhanced version of Ghostscript ("ESP GhostScript") for improved support of their printer portfolio.

See Also Ghostscript.

Escape Sequences

The first ever printers printed ASCII data only. To initiate a new line, or eject a page, they included special command sequences, often carrying a leading [ESC]-character. HP® evolved this concept through its series of PCL language editions until today, when they have developed a fullblown Page Description Language (PDL) from this humble beginnings.

See Also PCL, PDL.

ESC/P

Abbreviation for Epson Standard Codes for Printers. Epsons ESC/P printer language is besides PostScript® and PCL one of the best known.

See Also ESC/P, PCL, PostScript®, HP®/GL.

ESP

Abbreviation for Easy Software Products; the company that developed CUPS (the "Common UNIX® Printing System").

See Also Easy Software Products, CUPS, ESP PrintPro.

ESP Ghostscript

A Ghostscript version that is maintained by Easy Software Products. It includes pre-compiled Gimp-Print drivers for many inkjets ()plus some other goodies). ESP Ghostscript drives especially the Epson Stylus model series to photographic quality in many cases.

See Also Easy Software Products, CUPS, ESP PrintPro.

ESP PrintPro

This professional enhancement to CUPS (the "Common UNIX® Printing System") is sold by the developers of CUPS complete with more than 2.300 printer drivers for several commercial UNIX® platforms. ESP PrintPro is supposed to work "out of the box" with little or no configuration for users or admins. ESP sell also support contracts for CUPS and PrintPro. These sales help to feed the programmers who develop the Free version of CUPS.

See Also CUPS.

Filter

Filters, in general, are programs that take some input data, work on it and pass it on as their output data. Filters may or may not change the data. Filters in the context of printing, are programs that convert a given file (destined for printing, but not suitable in the format it has presently) into a printable format. Sometimes whole "filter chains" have to be constructed to achieve the goal, piping the output of one filter as input to the next.

See Also Ghostscript, RIP.

Foomatic

Foomatic started out as the wrapper name for a set of different tools available from Linuxprinting.org These tools aimed to make the usage of traditional ghostscript and other print filters more easy for users and extend the filters capabilities by adding more commandline switches or explain the drivers execution data. Foomatic's different incarnations are CUPS-O-Matic, PPD-O-Matic, PDQ-O-Matic, LPD-O-Matic and xyz. All of these allow the generation of appropriate printer configuration files online, by simply selection the suitable model and suggested (or alternate) driver for that machine. More recently, Foomatic gravitated towards becoming a "meta-spooling" system, that allows to configure the underlying print subsystem through a unified set of commands. (However this is much more complicated than KDEPrints GUI interface, which does a similar thing regarding different print subsystems.)

See Also CUPS-O-Matic, PPD-O-Matic, cupsomatic.

Ghostscript

Ghostscipt is a PostScript® RIP in software, originally developed by L. Peter Deutsch. There is always a GPL version of ghostscript available for free usage and distribution (mostly 1 year old) while the current version is commercially sold under another license. Ghostscript is widely used inside the Linux and UNIX® world for transforming PostScript® into raster data suitable for sending towards non-PostScript® devices.

See Also PostScript®, RIP.

Gimp-Print

Contrary to its name, Gimp-Print is not any longer just the plugin to be used for printing from the popular Gimp program -- its codebase can also serve to be compiled into... *...a set of PPDs and associated filters that integrate seamlessly into CUPS, supporting around 130 different printer models, providing photografic output quality in many cases; *...a Gostscript filter that can be used with any other program that needs a software-RIP; *...a library that can be used by other software applications in need of rasterization functions.

See Also Lexmark, RIP, Ghostscript.

HP®

Abbreviation for Hewlett-Packard; none of the first companys to distribute their own Linux printer drivers [...to be completed...]

HP®/GL

Abbreviation for HP® Grafical Language; a HP® printer language mainly used for plotters; many CAD (Computer Aided software programs output HP®/GL files for printing.

See Also ESC/P, PCL, PostScript®.

HP® JetDirect Protocol

A term branded by HP® to describe their implementation of print data transfer to the printer via an otherwise "AppSocket" or "Direct TCP/IP Prining" named protocol.

See Also AppSocket Protocol, Direct TCP/IP Printing.

IETF

Abbreviation for Internet Engineering Task Force; an assembly of internet, software and hardware experts that discuss new networking technologies and very often arrive at conclusions that are regarded by many as standards. "TCP/IP" is the most famous of examples. IETF standards, but also drafts, discussions, ideas or useful tutorials are put in writing in the famous series of "RFCs" which are available to the public and on burnt onto most Linux or BSD-CDs.

See Also IPP, PWG, RFC.

IPP

Abbreviation for Internet Printing Protocol; defined in a series of RFCs accepted by the IETF with status "proposed standard"; was designed by the PWG. -- IPP is a completely new design for network printing, but it is utilizing a very well-known and proven method for the actual data transfer: HTTP 1.1! By not "re-inventing the wheel", and basing itself on an existing and robust internet standard, IPP is able to relativly easy bolt other HTTP-compatible standard mechanisms into its framework: * Basic, Digest or Certificate authentication mechanisms; * SSL or TLS for encryption of transferred data; * LDAP for directory services (to publish data on printers, device-options, drivers, costs or elso to the network; or to check for passwords while conducting authentication).

See Also CUPS, PWG, IETF, RFC, TLS encryption.

KDEPrint

The new printing functionality of KDE since its version 2.2 consists of several modules that translate the features and settings of different available print subsystems (CUPS, BSD-style LPR/LPD, RLPR...) into nice KDE desktop GUI representation and dialogs to ease their usage. Most important for day-to-day usage is "kprinter", the new GUI print command. -- Note: KDEPrint does not implement its own spooling mechanism or its own PostScript® processing; for this it relies on the selected print subsystem -- however it does add some functionality of its own on top of this foundation...

See Also BSD-style Printing, CUPS, kprinter, KDEPrint Handbook....

KDEPrint Handbook...

...is the name of the reference document that describes KDEPrint functions to users and administrators. You can load it into Konqueror by typing "help:/kdeprint" into the address field. The KDEPrint website is the ressource for updates to this documentation as well as PDF versions fit for printing it. It is authored and maintained by Kurt Pfeifle.

See Also CUPS-FAQ.

kprinter

kprinter is the new powerfull print utility that is natively used by all KDE applications. Contrary to some common misconceptions, kprinter is not a CUPS-only tool, but supports different print subsystems. You can even switch to a different printsubsystem "on the fly", in between two jobs, without re-configuration. Of course, due to the powerful features of CUPS, kprinter is in best shape when used as a CUPS frontend. kprinter is the successor to "qtcups", which is no longer being actively maintained. kprinter has inherited all the best features of qtcups and added several new ones. AND MOST IMPORTANT: you can use kprinter with all its features in all non-KDE applications that allow a customized print command, like gv, AcrobatReader, Netscape, Mozilla, Galeon, StarOffice, OpenOffice and all GNOME programs. kprinter can act as a "standalone" utility, started from an X-Terminal or a "Mini-CLI" to print many different files, from different directories, with different formats, in one job and at once, without the need to first open the files in the applications! (File formats supported this way are PostScript®, PDF, International and ASCII Text and many different popular Grafic formats, such as PNG, TIFF, JPEG, PNM, Sun RASTER ecc.)

See Also kprinter.

Lexmark

was one of the first companys to distribute their own Linux printer drivers for some of their models. [...to be completed...]

Linuxprinting.org

Linuxprinting.org = not only for Linux; all UNIX®-like OS-es like *BSD and also commercial Unices may find useful printing information on that site; Foomatic -- Printer Data Base -- Driver Data Base....

See Also Linuxprinting.org Database.

Linuxprinting.org Database

....Data Base containing printers and drivers suitable for them... ...a lot of information and documentation to be found... ...it is now also providing some tools and utilities for easing the integration of those drivers into a given system... ...the "Foomatic" family of utilities being the toolset to make use of the data base [.............TO BE COMPLETED........]

See Also Foomatic.

LPR/LPD printing

LPR == some people translate Line Printing Request, others: Line Printer Remote.

See Also BSD-style Printing.

Magicfilter

Similarly to the APSfilter program, Magicfilter provides automatic file type recognition functions, and base on that, automatic file conversion to a printable format, depending on the target printer.

See Also APSfilter.

MIME-Types

Abbreviation for Multipurpose (or Multimedia) Internet Mail Extensions; MIME-Types were first used to allow the transport of binary data (like mail attachments containing grafics) over mail connections that were normally only transmitting ASCII characters: the data had to be encoded into an ASCII representation. Later this concept was extended to describe a data format in a platform independent, but at the same time in a non-ambigious way. From Windows® everybody knows the *.doc extensions for Microsoft® Word files. This is handled ambigiously on the Windows® platform: *.doc extensions are also used for simple text files or for Adobe Framemaker files. And if a real Word file is re-named to get a different extension, it can't be opened any longer by the program MIME typed filed carry a recognition string with them, describing their file format base on main_category/sub_category. Inside IPP, printfiled are also described using the MIME type scheme. MIME types are registered with the IANA (Internet Assigning Numbers Association) to keep them unambigious. CUPS has some MIME types of its own registered, like application/vnd.cups-raster (for the CUPS-internal raster image format).

See Also CUPS, Easy Software Products, ESP PrintPro, Gimp-Print.

PCL

Abbreviation for Printer Control Language; developed by HP®. PCL started off in version 1 as a simple command set for ASCII printing; now, in its versions PCL6 and PCL-X it is capable of printing grafics and printing color -- but outside the Microsoft® Windows® realm and HP-UX® (HP®'s own brand of UNIX®) it is not commonly used...

See Also ESC/P, HP®/GL, PDL, PostScript®.

PDL

Abbreviation for Page Description Language; PDLs describe in an abstract way the grafical representation of a page. - Before it is actually transferred into toner or ink layed down onto paper, a PDL needs to be "interpreted" first. In UNIX®, the most important PDL is PostScript.

See Also ESC/P, HP®/GL, PCL, PostScript®.

Pixel

Abbreviation for Picture Element; this term describes the smallest part of a raster picture (either as printed on paper or as put on a monitor by cathode rays or LCD elements). As any grafical or image representation on those kind of output devices is composed of pixels, the values of "ppi" (pixel per inch) and dpi (dots per inch) are one important parameter for the overall quality and resolution of an image.

See Also Filter, Ghostscript, PostScript®, Raster Image.

PJL

Abbreviation for Print Job Language; developed by HP® to control and influence default and per-job settings of a printer. May not only be used for HP®'s own (PCL-)printers; also many PostScript® and other printers understand PJL commands sent to them inside a printjob or in a separate signal.

See Also PCL.

PostScript®

PostScript® (often shortened "PS") is the de-facto standard in the UNIX® world for printing files. It was developed by Adobe and licensed to printer manufacturers and software companies. As the PostScript® specifications were published by Adobe, there are also "Third Party" implementations of PostScript® generating and PostScript® interpreting software available (one of the best-known in the Free software world being Ghostscript, a powerfull PS-interpreter) .

See Also ESC/P, HP®/GL, PCL, PPD.

PPD

Abbreviation for PostScript Printer Description; PPDs are ASCII files storing all information about the special capabilities of a printer, plus definitions of the (PostScript- or PJL-)commands to call on a certain capability (like printing duplex). As the explanation of the acronym reveals, PPDs were originally only used for PostScript® printers. CUPS has extended the PPD-concept towards all types of printers. PPDs for PostScript® printers are provided by the printer vendors. They can be used with CUPS and KDEPrint to have access to the full features of any PostScript® printer. The KDEPrint Team recommends to use a PPD originally intended for use with Microsoft® Windows NT. PPDs for non-PostScript printers need a companion "filter" to process the PostScript® print files towards a format digestable for the non-PostScript target device. Those PPD/filter combos are not (yet) available from the vendors. After the initiative by the CUPS developers to utilize PPDs, the Free Software community was creative enough to quickly come up with a support for most of the currently used printer models through PPDs and classical Ghostscript filters. But note: the printout quality differs from "hi-quality photografic output" (using Gimp-Print with most Epson inkjets) to "hardly readable" (using Foomatic-enabled ghostscript filters for models rated as "paperweight" in the Linuxprinting.org database).

See Also CUPS, Linuxprinting.org, PostScript®.

PPD-O-Matic

PPD-O-Matic is a set of Perl-Scripts that run on the Linuxprinting.org webserver and can be used online to generate PPDs for any printer that is known to print with ghostscript. These PPDs can be hook up to CUPS/KDEPrint as well as used inside PPD-aware applications like StarOffice to determine all different parameters of your printjobs. It is now recommended for most cases to use "PPD-O-Matic" instead of the older CUPS-O-Matic. To generate a PPD, go to the printer database, select your printer model, follow the link to show the available ghostscript filters for that printer, select one, click "generate" and finally safe the file to your local system. Make sure to read the instructions. Make sure your local system does indeed have ghostscript and the filter installed, which you chose before generating the PPD.

See Also PostScript®, CUPS-O-Matic, Linuxprinting.org, Foomatic.

printcap

The "printcap" file holds in BSD-style print systems the configuration information; the printing daemon reads this file to know which printers are available, what filters are to user for each, where the spooling directory is located, if there are banner pages to be used, and so on... Some applications also depend on reading access to the printcap file to grap the names of available printer.

See Also BSD-style Printing.

Printer-MIB

Abbreviation for Printer-Management Information Base; the Printer-MIB defines a set of parameters that are to be stored inside the printer for access through the network. This is useful if many (in some cases, literally thousands of) network printers are managed centrally with the help of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

See Also PWG, SNMP.

PWG

Abbreviation for Printer Working Group; the PWG is a loose grouping of representatives of the printer industry that has in the past years developed different standards in relation to nework printing, which were later accepted by the IETF as RFC standards, like the "Printer-MIB" and the IPP.

See Also PostScript®, PostScript®, IPP, Printer-MIB, SNMP.

print:/ KIO Slave

You can use a syntax of "print:/..." to get quick access to KDEPrint ressources. Typing "print:/manager" as a Konqueror URL address gives administrative access to KDEPrint. Konqueror uses KDE's famous "KParts" technology to achieve that.

See Also IO Slave, KParts.

Printer Data Base

.

See Also Linuxprinting.org Database.

QtCUPS

co-developer of QtCUPS and KUPS, the predecessors of KDEPrint, sole developer of KDEPrint -- a very nice and productive guy and quick bug fixer... ;-)

See Also kprinter.

Raster Image

In the last resort, every picture on a physical medium is composed of a pattern of discrete dots in different colors and (maybe) sizes. This is called a "raster image". This is opposed to a "vector image" where the grafic is described in terms of continuous curves, shades, forms and fills, represented by mathematical formula. Vector images normally are of a smaller file size and may be scaled in size without any loss of information and quality --- but they can't be output directly, they always need to be "rendered" or "rasterized" first to the given resolution, the output device is capable of... The rasterization is done by a Raster Image Processor (RIP, often the Ghostscript software) or some other filtering instance.

See Also Pixel, Ghostscript, PostScript®, Filter, RIP.

RIP

Abbreviation for Raster Image Process(or); if used in the context of printing, "RIP" means a hardware or software instance that converts PostScript® (or other print files that represented in one of the non-Raster PDLs) into a raster image format in such a way that it is acceptable for the "marking engine" of the printer. PostScript® printers contain their own PostScript-RIPs. A RIP may or may not be located inside a printer. For many UNIX® systems, Ghostscript is the package that provides a "RIP in software", running on the host computer, and pre-digesting the PostScript® or other data to become ready to be sent to the printing device (hence you may sense a "grain of truth" in the slogan "Ghostscript turns your printer into a PostScript® machine", which of course is not correct in the sense of the letter.)

See Also Filter, Ghostscript, PostScript®, PDL, Raster Image.

RLPR (Remote LPR)

Abbreviation for Remote Line Printing Request; this is a a BSD-style printing system, that needs no root priviledges to be installed and no "printcap" to work: all parameters may be specified on the command line. RLPR comes in handy for many laptop users who are working in frequently changing environments, because it may be installed concurrently with every other printing sub system and allows a very flexible and wuick way to install a printer for direct access via LPR/LPD. KDEPrint has an "Add Printer Wizard" to make RLPR usage even more easy. The kprinter command allows to switch to RLPR "on the fly" at any time.

See Also KDEPrint, kprinter, printcap.

SNMP

Abbreviation for Simple Network Management Protocol; SNMP is widely used to control all sorts network nodes (Hosts, Routers, Switches, Gateways, Printers...) remotely.

See Also PWG, Printer-MIB.

SSL(3) encryption

Abbreviation for Secure Socket Layer; SSL is a proprietary encryption method for data transfer over HTTP that was developed by Netscape and is now being re-placed by an IETF standard named TLS.

See Also Daemon.

SPOOLing

Abbreviation for Synchronous Peripherals Operations OnLine; SPOOLing enables printing applications (and users) to continue their work as the job is being taken care of by a system daemon who stores the file at a temporary location until the printer is ready to print.

See Also Daemon.

TLS encryption

Abbreviation for Transport Layer Security; SSL is an encryption standard for data transfered over HTTP 1.1; it is defined in RFC ???? [#look up number --TO BE DONE--] ; although based on the former SSL development (from Netscape) it is not fully compatible to it.

See Also Daemon.

System V-style printing

This is the second flavour of traditional UNIX® printing (as opposed to BSD-style printing). It uses a different command set (lp, lpadmin,...) from BSD, but is not fundamentally different from it. However, the gap between the two is big enough to make the two incompatible so that a BSD-client can't simply print to a System V style print server without additional tweaking... IPP is supposed to resolve this weakness and more.

See Also BSD-style Printing, IPP.

TurboPrint

A Shareware providing photo quality printing for many inkjet printers; it is useful if you don't find a driver for your printer otherwise; it may be hooked into a traditional Ghostscript or into a modern CUPS system.

See Also Gimp-Print.

XPP

Abbreviation for X Printing Panel; XPP was the first Free graphical print command for CUPS, written by Till Kamppeter, and in some ways a model for the "kprinter" utility in KDE.

Tecnologie

IO Slave

IO Slaves permette alle applicazioni KDE di accedere alle risorse remote nella stessa, facile maniera con la quale si accede alle risorse locali (rendendole “trasparenti alla rete”). Le risorse remote (ad es. file) possono essere memorizzate su condivisioni SMB o simili.

See Also SMB, KDE.

KIO

Il sistema KDE di Input/Output che usa il cosiddetto “IO Slaves”.

See Also IO Slave, KDE.

KParts

KParts è una tecnologia di integrazione che consente alle applicazioni di KDE di incorporare altre applicazioni KDE. Il visualizzatore di testo usato da Konqueror è un esempio di KPart.

See Also Konqueror.

KSycoca

KSycoca (KDE System Configuration Cache) è una cache delle configurazioni di sistema, che permette, tra l'altro, un accesso rapido alle voci di menu.

See Also KBuildSycoca.

XFree86

Antialiasing

Se citato nell'ambito KDE, antialiasing si riferisce spesso alla sfumatura dei tratti diagonali dei caratteri sullo schermo. Questo effetto viene reso possibile in KDE grazie alle Qt™ versione 2.3.0 o superiore, usate insieme a XFree86 4.x.

See Also KDE, Qt.

X-Server

L'X-Server costituisce le fondamenta su cui è costruita ogni GUI, del tipo di KDE. Gestisce le informazioni ricevute da mouse e tastiera, (sia da un host locale che da uno remoto) e fornisce le funzioni grafiche elementari per la costruzione di rettangoli e altre primitive.

See Also KDE, GUI.

Applicazioni

KBuildSycoca

KBuildSycoca è un programma a riga di comando, e rigenera il cosiddetto KSycoca. È utile nel caso si perda qualche modulo in KControl.

See Also KSycoca, KControl.

KControl

È il nome del progetto e del file del Centro di controllo KDE. KControl ti consente di personalizzare ogni opzione di configurazione di KDE.

See Also KDE.

Kicker

Kicker è sia il diminutivo che il nome di progetto del Pannello di KDE.

See Also KDE, Pannello.

Konqueror

Konqueror è una parte vitale del progetto KDE e, nella sua versatilità, può essere usato sia come gestore dei file che come web browser, o come visualizzatore d'immagini. Puoi trovare una panoramica completa su Konqueror in www.konqueror.org.

See Also KDE.

KSirc

KSirc è il client IRC fornito con KDE. Puoi usare KSirc per comunicare con chiunque su una rete IRC.

See Also IRC.

Terminologia del desktop

Drag and Drop (Trascinamento)

Si riferisce alla sostituzione di alcune azioni, quali quelle necessarie per copiare un file da un posto a un altro, con certi movimenti di mouse, ad es. fare clic su un'icona in una finestra di Konqueror, spostare il mouse su un'altra finestra tenedo premuto il pulsante del mouse, quindi rilasciarlo (lasciando "cadere" l'oggetto) dove vuoi copiare il file.

See Also Konqueror.

GUI

Abbreviazione di Graphical User Interface. Ogni ambiente desktop (come KDE) è una GUI. La maggior parte delle GUI forniscono supporto per mouse e/o finestre per la gestione dei programmi.

See Also KDE.

KDE

Abbreviazione di “K Desktop Environment”, una delle migliori interfacce (GUI) grafiche per sistemi di tipo UNIX®. Per maggiori dettagli visita il sito web www.kde.org.

See Also GUI.

GNOME

GNU Network Object Model Environment, una delle migliori GUI per UNIX®.

See Also GUI.

Pannello

Si riferisce al pannello (detto anche “Kicker”) che normalmente si trova sulla parte inferiore dello schermo.

See Also KDE, Kicker.

ripping

Il processo di lettura di dati audio da un unità CD-ROM e il loro salvataggio su disco fisso.

Sviluppo KDE

Qt

La GUI di KDE ha come base la libreria Qt™, che fornisce molti elementi grafici (i cosiddetti “Widget”), usati per costruire il desktop. Maggiori informazioni sulle Qt™ sono reperibili direttamente sul sito www.trolltech.com.

See Also KDE, GUI, Widget.

i18n

Sta per “internazionalizzazione” (in inglese i +18 caratteri + n). KDE è disponibile in molte lingue, e diverse tecniche i18n rendono relativamente semplice la traduzione dell'interfaccia utente e della relativa documentazione di KDE in queste lingue. Esaurienti informazioni sui procedimenti di internazionalizzazione sono disponibili su i18n.kde.org.

See Also KDE, GUI.

l10n

Abbreviazione di “localizzazione”, il processo di adattamento di un programma alle convenzioni locali. Ciò include, ad es. il formato data e ora in uso, la valuta, etc.

See Also i18n.

Widget

Elementi grafici quali barre di scorrimento, pulsanti o campi di inserimento usati da KDE per costruire la GUI.

See Also KDE, GUI.

CVS

Concurrent Version System. Il CVS è un sistema molto efficiente per la gestione di versioni di file, che permette a più programmatori di lavorare con facilità su uno stesso progetto.Troverai informazioni sul modo di ottenere la versione più recente (in sviluppo) dei sorgenti KDE via anonymous CVS su http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html. Altre informazioni su CVS sono a disposizione su www.cvshome.org.

Varie ed eventuali

RFC

Request For Comment (Richiesta di parere). Un modo comune per pubblicare progetti di nuovi protocolli o procedure, affinché vengano valutati dalla comunità Internet. Benché gli RFC non siano vincolanti, dal momento che sono approvati dalla comunità molte applicazioni cercano di aderirvi il più possibile. Puoi reperire maggiori informazioni sugli RFC nel sito RFC Homepage.

Protocolli diversi

SMB

Server Message Block. Un protocollo di rete usato in ambienti Microsoft® Windows® per l'accesso al filesystem di altri computer.

See Also IO Slave.

IRC

Internet Relay Chat. Un protocollo definito nel RFC 1459, che definisce le specifiche per la messaggistica in tempo reale.

See Also RFC.

host

Questo termine può essere riferito sia al tuo file locale /etc/hosts(ilmiocomputer), sia al nome di un sito (www.kde.org) che ad un indirizzo IP (192.168.0.10).