On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Robert Heller heller@deepsoft.com wrote:
At Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:50:32 -0400 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
Sending my son back to college with a dual-boot laptop with Win 7 and CentOS 5.5. He uses Win7 to manage his iPod and SW that sometimes issued by a professor for a specific course...otherwise he uses CentOS for everything else. That setup worked well last year, except for printing. He has a low-end Cannon printer that is not supported in the Linux realm.
Most of his coursework was uploaded to "Blackboard" and rarely did he have to print anything. On the rare occasion when he had to print a paper/briefing, his work-around was to build the paper/briefing in OO, save in Office 2003 format on a USB drive, boot to Win7, load in MS Office and print to the Cannon printer. I'm looking to clean that mess up for him before sending him back to school.
Looking to buy an inexpensive printer he can use on both sides of this laptop. Any suggestions?
Almost any *new* *inket* printer is going to be a hassle to get working under CentOS. HPs are actually the worst -- HP has some anal business of hardwiring in model numbers in the driver (or some such nonsense), even when a new model uses the same driver protocols as an older model, so you need a 'new' driver, even when the old driver would otherwise work. Yes, the driver is open source, but the pre-built binaries use bleeding edge system libraries and the sources are a bear to build and install from source (and will of course screw with yum & rpm).
Now, B&W *PostScript* *Laser* printers are universal. (And don't in fact need a 'driver' at all under Linux). Over the long haul, Laser printers are actually *cheaper* to use than even the cheapest Inkjet. Really. The only downside is Laser printers are somewhat bulker that low-end inkjets.
*I'd* suggest getting the $250 Brother model I got, HL-5370DW, I just plugged it in, configured dhcpd, and spent two minutes with CUPS, and was printing away (CentOS 5). (This model also has USB and parallel port interfaces, but you'll need to get a cable.) I also suspect that the toner cart it comes will will last the whole shool year, maybe even for the rest of your son's college years. (Unlike the inkjet carts which will probably need replacing after 2-3 long term papers.)
Dave M
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-- Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar! Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database heller@deepsoft.com -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk
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Or, just buy a small flash stick and go to a computer lab at school to print stuff out. That was what I did. Or get a brother laser jet, I have a HL-2040.