What is a Good Printer for Linux? 38
mystik asks: "What would be a good printer for my linux system? I bought an HP712C for a great price, but was disappointed to find out that HP made the Protocol propriatary, and unanable to work without some siginificant hacking of my linux system. Hopefully I can get some good printers cheap... " Well, this is a rather broad question. It would help if folks would recommend several different printers covering as many of the printer classes (ie dot-matrix, bubble-jet, ink-jet, and lasers) as you can.
Postscript laser printers are good (Score:2)
Otherwise, you should be able to find some HP laserprinters at reasonable prices, though network support will probably cost you extra. In the linux world PCL is about as well supported as postscript, so you won't be losing too much.
The really good thing about these older laser printers is that they are built like tanks, turn out pages at fairly high rates (8ppm is common) and under normal home or student use they run forever on a single toner cartridge.
PRINTERS 4 LINUX (Score:2)
HP Deskjet (Score:2)
I use ghostscript to print anything "pretty" using cdj550 as my printer type.
Shawn
I hope you don't consider Ghostscript a hack.. (Score:1)
On the other hand, we have this wonderful tool called ghostscript that will turn a postscript file into your printer native language and you can do things like `cat
Writting filters for printcap isn't that hard either. I haven't bothered to do it yet, but I do have an alias set to turn a ps into a gs and dump it to lpr.
I wouldn't be surprized if someone made their filter available, although I use slackware and, from what I understand, the more frilly distros come with fancy gui's to set up printers.
have fun.
Try this first... (Score:2)
Try this filtering program listed on Freshmeat called ifhp. [freshmeat.net]
Just trying to help you save some cash!
Non Postscript LaserJet (Score:1)
Chris Morgan
There's a Linux printer guide (Score:2)
I'm sending email home to remember to post a followup to this. Check back after midnight GMT.
--
No, not all Epson printers are good... (Score:1)
Re:PRINTERS 4 LINUX (Score:1)
I can find Laserwriter II series printers on the net for between $100 and $250 (Nostromo Enterprises [sacnetworks.com] is one source, but there are others) and simlar deal on older Deskjets are fairly easy to find.
The only reason that it is reasonable to buy and use used printers is that most older printers are built very sturdily and don't degrade much with age. Also, the general task of putting computer output on paper hasn't changed very much in the last ten years, with the exception of the ready availability of color output these days.
If you want color, however, and you are on a budget, you are pretty much restricted to inkjet printers, which eat int carts quite rapidly. (but produce very nice output)
Low-cost PS lasers (Score:2)
There is a linux driver, and it works well... (Score:2)
It is easy to install, and works with Ghostscript, so the printer looks like a postscript device.
I have had no problems with it, and installation is pretty straghtforward (instructions are on the above site).
I don't blame HP so much for creating the whole winprinter concept (which after all is not much different then PCL). It makes sense, as current host CPU's are SO powerfull. I don't want to pay for another CPU and more RAM for my printer... I already have that in my PC. Go ahead and make the printer dumb and cheap.
I do blame HP for not opening up the interface specifications, however. It is silly to make people reverse engineer everything to get these (otherwise quite nice) printers supported on other operating systems.
I, for one, would not have bought my 720 had I not known already that it was supported via the above linked product.
That being said, it is a great little printer for black and white output under Linux, and coupled with good plastic coated Kodak inkjet paper, can produce some stunningly high quality photographs under Windows. It's a lot of bang for the buck.
Bill Kilgallon
Re:Postscript laser printers are good (Score:1)
Lexmark Optra 40 (Score:2)
Lexmark Optra E310 (Score:2)
In the laser category, I would recommend the Lexmark Optra E310. It's the best priced PS laser printer I have found. I got one a few months ago, and the output is very nice. Postscript level 2 comes standard as well as PCL 6, 5e. 600dpi, 8ppm, 2MB standard, expandable to 66MB. USB and parallel, with ethernet add-on available I believe. Got mine for about $450CDN.
Re:Postscript laser printers are good (Score:2)
One recommendation is to add additional memory to improve performance. The LJ III's only come with a small amount of memory, and adding more really helps.
Re:There's a Linux printer guide (Score:2)
There it is..
Re:PRINTERS 4 LINUX (Score:1)
Printers for Linux - one plug, one pan (Score:1)
for the Macintosh market) that was fabulous.
Got it back in 1992 or 1993 when it came out
and ran it for six years. Great printer. I
finally used it up earlier this year and bought
the HP LaserJet 3100. Great printer too, BUT
not suitable for Linux use. Its pluses are that
it has a good scanner, a nice standalone fax, and
an excellent printer. Its minus is that the
protocol on the wire is proprietary and the
drivers for it are only available for Windows
95, 98, and (recently) NT. From the behavior
of my PC when I print (painfully slow), I surmise
that the printer is very dumb with nothing even
as sophisticated as PCL, much less PostScript,
on the wire. I guess that the PC's CPU is doing
all of the page composition work and probably
sending rasters over to the printer. What
comes back from the scanner is anyone's guess.
Too bad HP hasn't published a spec
a good driver for Linux, it would be a wonderful
choice.
A while back I would've said PS, but... (Score:2)
I have an Epson Stylus Color 600. I have it set to 720x720 dpi (you can go up to 1440). Print quality is fantastic. I've printed transparencies for positive PCB making on LaserJets at work which completely sucked. Dark areas faded in the middle, it was really spotty. It was unacceptable for what I was doing. I sent the files home and printed them on my el-cheapo Epson. The images were perfect. The boards actually looked professional. Not even any breaks on the very thin lines. I've found the quality better than the DeskJets I've tried, as well.
Despite what many people have told me, It's incredibly reliable. I've never had a paper jam, it's never pulled two pages through as one, and it takes very little space on top of my print server, a mini-tower. Tech support is very good, too.
Basically, Epson gives you quite the bang for your buck. I've had no problems with it in Linux.
Yep that's it! Thanks, spinkham (Score:2)
Very nice printer guide.
--
Lexmark Optra E310 (Score:1)
Cheers,
Re:Low-cost PS lasers (Score:1)
HOW DO YOU PRINT NON-PDF/JPG/ETC WITH GHOSTSCRIPT? (Score:1)
Printer compatability db (Score:1)
http://gatekeeper.picant e.com/~gtaylor/pht/printer_list.cg [picante.com]
grek
Re:A while back I would've said PS, but... (Score:2)
Your Canon 4300 (Score:1)
Mine is on a FreeBSD/Samba box, and it works okay form a Windows client, but remote printing to it from Linux is iffy. Any hints?
George
HP laserjet 1100 (Score:1)
about US$100. They all sucked--poor quality, slow. Sure you can use ghostscript with most printers, but hell, my epson took about 6 min per page! Dot matrix printers usually take me 15 min per page to print.
I decided to buy a postscript laser printer, but couldn't find one for a reasonable price. Then I discovered the HP 1100 laserjet. No postscript, but costs under $400. Ghostscript works wonderfully--the 1100 is lj4/5/6 compatible (in fact the 1100 is replacing the lj6 line, according to HP when I called). Talk about fast!!! and awesome output! It's highest res. is 600x600, but that is good enough for my needs. This is the best printer I ever bought. It is so easy to set up too---you don't need to even get Aladdin gs and recompile after tweaking the driver. Just plain awesome.
A vote for the Brother HL-1040 (Score:1)
Re:HP Deskjet (Score:1)
I could be wrong to make this generalisation, but it looks like the entire 700 series use this new page definition language (or whatever it's called) -- the term "WinPrinter" starts to spring to mind...
Re:Lexmark Optra E310 (Score:2)
I've been seriously considering one of these, having found a source of them at a very good price. I have a few concerns though. Firstly, what's the print quality like? I'm not after anything spectacular, but I'm always a bit wary of "low-end" tech. Secondly, is the standard 2MB enough, or should I look at getting more? My current printer has 512K which is definitely not enough for some of the image-based stuff I print. Also, what does it do on a PostScript error? My current printer (a QMS 410-PS) just stops, and awaits a new job. The ones at work print out the PostScript error, so you can see what's gone wrong. Obviously, I'd prefer the latter...
It's actually Lexmark that started "WinPrinters" (Score:1)
And the WinWriter line of printers?
That was a whole heap of stuff I'd like to forget. But hey, life is better now, and I'd have to say that the printers that has the *nicest* output, bar none, are the Lexmark Optra E series.
Nice looking printers too.
John.
Re:Lexmark Optra E310 (Score:1)
all HP printers are best. (Score:1)
Re:HP Deskjet (Score:1)
These problems are pretty common with cheap ink-jet. IMHO, you should avoid ink-jet printer at all cost unless you need color printing. Invest in a laser; you'll save in the long run on the supply and keep your printer longer.
Just my 2 bit.