[clug] Printers for Linux

[Anthony David]

Pearl Louis <pearl.louis at anu.edu.au> writes:

> 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.


The UX models are the bottom of the range and I think have a lot of
"WinPrinter" driver support (not very smart, requiring software on
the host to drive it). I would not touch them. I am very happy with
 my Epson C61, apart from my Motherboard and general parallel port issues :)

Tom, my son, installed a C63  a couple of months ago one for a fellow
on a Debian installation. He said thew doco said - "Will work with
parallel... should work with USB". After some problems with USB, he got
the fellow to use the parallel interface and he hasn't heard from
him since.
 
Anthony David