[clug] Printers for Linux

[Pearl Louis]

Hi

Thanks for all the replies!

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 02:38 pm, Michael Carden wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 01:44 am, Pearl Louis wrote:
> > I'm looking at buying a printer.  I'm a student and therefore want to go
> > el cheapo :)
>
> You haven't mentioned your requirements for the printer. The basic choice
> would be 'text only' or 'photo.' Then you can dig deeper to consider things
> like paper size (do you need A3?) or the need to print on multipart forms
> (dot matrix rules!) etc etc.

My requirements are pretty simple.  My main uses for the printer will be to 
print out physics papers and drafts with maybe a bit of colour every now and 
then for the odd colour figure. I don't really require any type of photo 
printing qualities, though it seems that every inkjet printer nowadays has it 
to a greater or lesser extent anyway...

>
> One resource you may consider is the http://www.linuxprinting.org/ web
> site. The presentation of the information on the site is at times quirky
> and their forums appear to be hosted on a Commodore 64, but there is
> information to be had.

Thanks for the recommendation.  I had a look.  The forums would be much easier 
to find info in if it had a search function.  From their advice I've 
discounted Lexmark and Canon and am now focused on either Epson or HP as they 
have the best Linux support.

>
> When making the same decision last year, I chose an Epson Stylus Photo 830.
> In general, Epson printers enjoy good open source support and I was
> particularly looking for a photo printer. I paid something just over $300
> at the time, but I note from catalogues that they're a lot cheaper now. For
> example, the folks in Civic at http://www.scannerplace.com.au/ij_epson.htm
> are advertising it for $259 on their web site.

I got a gift voucher that I can use at Dick Smith so I thought I might buy it 
from them.  Having a look at what Dick Smith in Civic have, I'm somewhat torn 
between the HP 5550 Deskjet and the Epson Stylus C63.
Both are the same price.  The HP 5550 is very well supported in Linux and is 
pretty much plug n play in Linux but it's older and from the review I read on 
zdnet it was just an OK printer even when it came out.  The Epson has got 
very high marks on zdnet as a very good printer and has separate cartridges 
for each colour so it ends up being very cheap to run. However since it is 
fairly new it's not very plug n play in Linux and requires some fiddling 
around to get it to work, at least in Red Hat 9 from the forums on 
linuxprinting.org.  It'd probably be somewhat the same in Mandrake 9.2.

Decisions, decisions...

BTW, does anyone know what the "UX" assignation means to a printer model in 
Epson?  Dick Smith is advertising the printer as the Epson Stylus C63UX which 
isn't in the linuxprinting.org database.  It's possible it's just mislabeling 
as Epson's web page doesn't seem to know of a C63UX either (though it lists 
the C63).  But just in case it isn't a mislabeling problem I'd like to know 
if the advice about compatibility in the linuxprinting.org database also 
applies to it.  Google doesn't seem to be able to shed any light on this.

Pearl