On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 11:02:04AM -0500, Paul Johnson wrote:
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Ron Loftin reloftin@twcny.rr.com wrote:
Since my old Epson C86 has finally managed to clog up the print heads, I'm in the market for a replacement. I'd like to know what the people on this list are using for printers that are currently available, since we are using versions of CUPS and foomatic that are frozen, and any other issues or "gotchas" that you are aware of.
For the replacement printer, I'm considering a color laser printer instead of the inkjets that I've been using, and I'm dithering back and forth over the question of direct-connect or networked printer. Suggestions, warnings, and horror stories are welcome.
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I have had an absolutely horrible experience with HP1018. It is a non-postscript printer that HP sells now. It has a print driver system that reminds me quite a bit of the old "win modems" that appeared in 1993 or so. I recall it was called the "Zj stream protocol" or something like that. It is supposed to work with hplip and some special drivers & firmware, but it is very unstable for us. After wrestling with drivers a lot, I contacted their support and the man said to me "we don't even make that, some Chinese company slaps those together and we sell them to compete in the lowest part of the market. You get what you pay for." A secretary ordered some because they are windows compatible. But they are really windows only. At all costs, avoid HP1018 or any HP device that does not support postscript protocol.
For those who may be interested in low-priced monochrome lasers (the last poster's cautionary tale about the el-cheapo HP lasers makes me think to post this) I've been VERY HAPPY with my Brother HL2070-N printer. I got it for $133 from Amazon about a year and a half ago, but at various times I've seen it for less than $100 there, or at newegg or other places. It "just works" on my Centos system. Plugged it in to USB and up pops a window asking if I'd like to configure it now. I've since changed it to be on the household LAN where it also just works. There's a very similar one that lacks the network interface (I think it's the HL2040) for even less money, but has the same performance specs (but half the RAM, I assume that without the network layer and the administration web page it needs less). Brother has GPL drivers for it, but I didn't need them. it was literally plug and play.