easysw-firewire-linux.txt   [plain text]

Easy Software Products
44141 Airport View Drive
Suite 204
Hollywood, Maryland 20636
+1.301.373.9600
March 8, 2002


Subject: EPSON Firewire Printer Driver for Linux

Currently, no Firewire printer support exists for Linux.  Since
the latest EPSON printer products depend on the Firewire
interface to print at full speed, a solution is needed to
support customers using Linux as their server platform.

The Linux Firewire subsystem provides a user-mode driver
interface that allows driver programs to access Firewire
devices.  Easy Software Products will utilize this interface to
develop a "backend" program for the Common UNIX Printing System
that will allow users to print to EPSON printers using the
Firewire interface.

After examining the Linux interface, we estimate that it will
require approximately 30 hours of development time to write,
test, and document the Firewire backend, for a total cost of
$3,000. The new backend will become a standard part of the CUPS
software distribution and will be included with at least the
following Linux distributions:

    - Caldera Linux
    - Mandrake Linux
    - Red Hat Linux
    - SuSE Linux

ESP will provide EPSON with binaries for Red Hat Linux 7.2.