Printing from Nokia 770
 

I'm surprise no one have asked this. But why isn't the Nokia 770 able to print to a bluetooth printer or a network printer?

Because Nokia didn't think it should, apparently.

Sure they did. That's why it's running Linux and not some closed proprietary bloat. :p

I've never heard of/seen Bluetooth printers... laptop peripheral?

Sure they got bluetooth printers. They even sale usb bluetooth print servers.

My Nokia 9500 prints (not perfectly, but OK) to networked printers, IRDA printers and BT printers, so Nokia has thought of this.

I think the better question is "Who is porting LPD/CUPS to the 770?"

If we had this, then the only problem would be Opera. Opera themselves would have to add printing support. Seeing that Opera prints on desktop versions, and on Series 80, there should be little effort needed.

As far as the rest of the apps, it would be up to the individual coder/porter to add/port printing support.

I did not see LPD or CUPS in the Maemo Wiki ApplicationCatalogWIP or Wishlist.

Sure this is a hack, but it would work
 

I wrote a program like this a few years ago. This is a hack, but whatever. Anyway, it was an NT service (or a Linux daemon, if you like), that periodically polls a folder, on a PC, that happens to be physically connected to a printer. This PC would have Bluetooth. Anyway, after pairing with the PC, you just copy the file to the folder that is being polled, and the PC prints the file on your behalf. Heck, you can use a 10-year old PC for this, as long as it had USB (for the Bluetooth dongle). It could easily be written in VB, or a shell script in Linux. Plus, it could serve as a print server for your Wifi network (if you have one).

Another way is to create an email address such as MikesPrinter@bellsouth.net. Most ISP's allow you to create multiple email addresses. Anyway, if you have a PC running Outlook, just create a rule in Outlook that prints everything sent to this email address, that comes from your email address, or your spouse's, kids, et al. Then just mail whatever you want to print, with Wifi, and away it goes. This is easier.

For example, the Rules Wizard
 

See picture

I have a combined USB/ParPort-to-Bluetooth adapter. It works perfectly -- well, with my Sony Ericsson P910i and my Fujitsu Winblows tablet at least. Never tried it with Linux, and as long as the 770 doesn't have LPD and/or CUPS, there really is no point in trying it on that platform.

As to the Nokia 9500 printing, that's a Symbian Series 80 device, a very nice O/S indeed, but as far away from Linux as one can possibly get. :)

To satisfy my own curiosity I've tried porting quite a few things to the 770. In general, if it doesn't have a GUI, then it seems to port quite easily and/or existing ARM executables are fine. GTK gui's should port, but they'll need some tweaking as few people ever anticipated screens on Linux boxes getting smaller.

What it perhaps more significant with a new device like this - it's not just a minature PC - is what form should applications and services take. My personal solution to the printing issue is most likely to be a printme@myserver solution. i.e. I email the url or document home for auto printing (or more likely spolling for printing later). This will be on the same box that runs SlimServer for my music streaming to the 770, webcams, with VNC and ssh access, and of course scratchbox and maemo for building 770 applications.

I hope this obviously needed feature will be implemented in an entirely optional way.

It is easy to see that lots of users could use printing ability. I just dont want the OS or other software to be bogged down with lots of code some of the rest of us don't need.

cAPS