John R Pierce wrote:
On 08/16/10 11:50 AM, David McGuffey 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?
campus doesn't have all sorts of networked printers?!? I know the CSU my son goes to has printers all over the place.
Most Brother printers have Linux support, so do most HP printers. Brother's B&W Lasers have the cheapest per page costs of about any printer out there, they are ugly but they just work.
Many of the low end HP laser printers have Postscript built in, so Linux can talk directly to them. Otherwise, I use CUPS with Gutenprint to do the translation. If you can stretch the budget, even the CP1518ni Color Laserjet is often available for less then $300. After you factor in the cost of ink vs. toner, the laser comes out costing less in the long run.
Bob McConnell N2SPP