Oldest son came back from college and wants a printer for his Dell laptop. I built it with CentOS 5.3 x86_64 several months ago and will upgrade it to 5.4
The Cannon printer he now has (bought with the laptop and Vista through the university book store), doesn't seem to have linux drivers. I built the machine with Vista and CentOS in dual-boot, so he could manage his iTunes and use the printer under Vista. He does almost all his college work under CentOS. Most of his papers are submitted electronically, but occasionally he has to print one.
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
DaveM
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
Install cups-pdf and have pdfs created by any application that can print. Save those somewhere that can be used by both (fat partition, usb stick, send email to himself, etc) and then print in Vista. cups-pdf is available from epel repo.
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
I wouldn't buy a color printer at all. I assume, every decent college has some sort of print-shop on the campus where you can make high-quality color printouts for pennies. For black&white, I'd buy a decent laser printer. Personally, I don't own a printer anymore since finishing university - I print everything (usually a couple of pages per month) at work. If I'd have to buy one now, I'd look for an appropriate Brother model. They seem to have decent support for Linux.
cheers, Rainer
rainer@ultra-secure.de wrote:
If I'd have to buy one now, I'd look for an appropriate Brother model. They seem to have decent support for Linux.
indeed, Brother B&W laser printers have some of the best price oer page printed too. they work fine with aftermarket toner and drums (mine uses a $30 toner ever ~2000 pages, and a $60 drum kit every 7000-8000 pages.
I'm also a fan of ethernet printers, but I can see how that might not work well in a dorm as they arent allowed to use hubs or switches, just direct connect registered computers to the building network.
I will also say, don't get the really cheapest of the cheap printers, they ere just too cheaply built, and will have more problems with paper jams, and likely fail sooner. price toner supplies and figure the per page cost amortized over 30,000 pages or whatever. a reasonable printer is like $100 or $150.
At Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:09:03 +0100 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
I wouldn't buy a color printer at all. I assume, every decent college has some sort of print-shop on the campus where you can make high-quality color printouts for pennies. For black&white, I'd buy a decent laser printer. Personally, I don't own a printer anymore since finishing university - I print everything (usually a couple of pages per month) at work. If I'd have to buy one now, I'd look for an appropriate Brother model. They seem to have decent support for Linux.
Right. *Laser* printers are way *cheaper* than inkjets. (Really!) A printer that speak PostScript is instantly plug-and-play for a Linux system (any distro, any version).
cheers, Rainer
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
I wouldn't buy a color printer at all. I assume, every decent college has some sort of print-shop on the campus where you can make high-quality color printouts for pennies. For black&white, I'd buy a decent laser printer.
<snip> I'll second this. A couple years ago, when the inkjet I had died, I looked at other inkjets (ANY MAKE *O*T*H*E*R* than HP!!!), and then the salesguys chatted up a cute, small HP Laserjet 1018 (HP Laserjets, on the other hand, *are* still good). After the promotional discount that was literally half the price, I got it for about $68. No, that's not a mistake. It's worked very well (though that model, I had to build the driver for). Color - I get someone else to do, or do it at work.
mark
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 20:20 -0500, David McGuffey wrote:
Oldest son came back from college and wants a printer for his Dell laptop. I built it with CentOS 5.3 x86_64 several months ago and will upgrade it to 5.4
The Cannon printer he now has (bought with the laptop and Vista through the university book store), doesn't seem to have linux drivers.
what model printer is this? Did you check http://www.linuxprinting.org? You may also want to take a look at turboprint www.turboprint.info , it is commercial, but offer good quality drivers for a lot of printers. It will still be cheaper than to buy a new printer....
Louis
On Sat, 2009-12-19 at 10:52 +0100, Louis Lagendijk wrote:
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 20:20 -0500, David McGuffey wrote:
Oldest son came back from college and wants a printer for his Dell laptop. I built it with CentOS 5.3 x86_64 several months ago and will upgrade it to 5.4
The Cannon printer he now has (bought with the laptop and Vista through the university book store), doesn't seem to have linux drivers.
what model printer is this? Did you check http://www.linuxprinting.org? You may also want to take a look at turboprint www.turboprint.info , it is commercial, but offer good quality drivers for a lot of printers. It will still be cheaper than to buy a new printer....
Yes, I checked that site. The printer is a USB Cannon IP1800. Chasing links I found at linuxprinting I had to go to Japan to get a driver, but it wouldn't work.
My HP Photosmart 3210 (ethernet) at home works on CentOS. I may give him that one, and buy a new printer for CINC House and me.
DaveM
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 06:33:18PM -0500, David McGuffey wrote:
Yes, I checked that site. The printer is a USB Cannon IP1800. Chasing links I found at linuxprinting I had to go to Japan to get a driver, but it wouldn't work.
Try
http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0027213.asp?model=
(found from http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010455.asp )
Even includes a nice rpm which has a cups PPD driver :-)
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 3:40 PM, Stephen Harris lists@spuddy.org wrote:
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 06:33:18PM -0500, David McGuffey wrote:
Yes, I checked that site. The printer is a USB Cannon IP1800. Chasing links I found at linuxprinting I had to go to Japan to get a driver, but it wouldn't work.
Been there, done that - one reason I recommended avoiding Canon printers....
Try
http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0027213.asp?model=
(found from http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010455.asp )
Even includes a nice rpm which has a cups PPD driver :-)
If this works, go for it. Does this mean that Canon is coming around, finally? Two years ago, they didn't acknowledge that Linux was anything other than a nose-up-turner....
(I'd still stick with Brother or HP. If the Canon ink cartridges are the newer, electronically aware/controlled kind, I'll be surprised if you don't want to switch soon enough anyway.)
Best of luck anyway.
mhr
MHR wrote:
(I'd still stick with Brother or HP. If the Canon ink cartridges are the newer, electronically aware/controlled kind, I'll be surprised if you don't want to switch soon enough anyway.)
I like the carts on my Canon i9900 photo printer... they are simple clear plastic carts, with a prism molded into the bottom of the ink compartment... the printer shines a laser up into the cart, and can tell exactly when the ink is low and when its gone. so simple its silly. These are Canon BCI-6x (where x varies with the color)
catch-22, afaik, its impossible to get this printer working with Linux. It prints gorgeous 13x19" edge to edge photos, uses 8 ink colors (black, cyan, magenta, yellow, photo-cyan, photo-magenta, red, and green). Its quite fast for an inkjet, too, considering how excellent the quality is. Hasn't clogged ever in 3-4 years of moderately heavy but intermittent use. Had to clean the bottom of the inkjet plate once when ink buildup started to leave little streaks on the bottom 1/4" of the pages of photopaper.
HP is the one who likes to chip their cartridges, that and Epson.
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 6:27 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
I like the carts on my Canon i9900 photo printer... they are simple clear plastic carts, with a prism molded into the bottom of the ink compartment... the printer shines a laser up into the cart, and can tell exactly when the ink is low and when its gone. so simple its silly. These are Canon BCI-6x (where x varies with the color)
Yeah, those are the good ones. I have a Canon i560 inkjet that my son likes, and it uses the BCI-3 black and BCI-6 color cartridges. Those are terrific - you can use generic ink in them for refills and they just work and work and work (except not with Linux, as John says).
The newer ones I've had were the IP4200 and IP4300, which use the PGI-5 black and BCI-8 color cartridges, and the IP4600 (current one), which uses the 221 and 222 cartridges (I forgot the letter). They only work with the Canon cartridges, and those run $50 for a set at Costco, more everywhere else. I don't know if they work with Linux or not, but the ink is prohibitively expensive, and they are really fragile and nitpicky. the 4200 and 4300 only lasted about 6 months each, and the only reason the 4600 hasn't given out yet is that, due to the cost of the inks, we don't use it much.
I love Canon cameras, and their printers produce gorgeous printouts, color or b/w, but they are expensive and don't work with Linux. For myself, I use the Brother for 99% of everything, and my HP4350 fax-printer inkjet for faxes and (rarely) color - it's cheap as long as I don't overuse it.
mhr
On Sat, 2009-12-19 at 18:42 -0800, MHR wrote:
Yeah, those are the good ones. I have a Canon i560 inkjet that my son likes, and it uses the BCI-3 black and BCI-6 color cartridges. Those are terrific - you can use generic ink in them for refills and they just work and work and work (except not with Linux, as John says).
See http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-i560 Gutenprint should support your printer....
Louis
On Sat, 2009-12-19 at 18:40 -0500, Stephen Harris wrote:
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 06:33:18PM -0500, David McGuffey wrote:
Yes, I checked that site. The printer is a USB Cannon IP1800. Chasing links I found at linuxprinting I had to go to Japan to get a driver, but it wouldn't work.
Try
http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0027213.asp?model=
(found from http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010455.asp )
Even includes a nice rpm which has a cups PPD driver :-)
No joy:
When I start to install with rpm, here is what I get:
Missing Dependency: cnijfilter-common >= 2.70 is needed by package cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386 (/cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386) Missing Dependency: libxml.so.1 is needed by package cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386 (/cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386)
I'm using x86_64, and not keen about installing i386 packages. Any incompatibility issues with running i386 packages on a 64 bit CentOS?
DaveM
David McGuffey wrote:
Oldest son came back from college and wants a printer for his Dell laptop. I built it with CentOS 5.3 x86_64 several months ago and will upgrade it to 5.4
The Cannon printer he now has (bought with the laptop and Vista through the university book store), doesn't seem to have linux drivers. I built the machine with Vista and CentOS in dual-boot, so he could manage his iTunes and use the printer under Vista. He does almost all his college work under CentOS. Most of his papers are submitted electronically, but occasionally he has to print one.
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
DaveM
Hi Dave,
I have 2 lasers one BW and the other colour. The BW printer is a Brother 5250DN (N for network) and a samsung CLP-310 also network capable. The samsung comes with linux drivers on a CD. Both are ery affordable and work well with linux.
Phil
Phil Savoie wrote:
David McGuffey wrote:
Oldest son came back from college and wants a printer for his Dell laptop. I built it with CentOS 5.3 x86_64 several months ago and will upgrade it to 5.4
The Cannon printer he now has (bought with the laptop and Vista through the university book store), doesn't seem to have linux drivers. I built the machine with Vista and CentOS in dual-boot, so he could manage his iTunes and use the printer under Vista. He does almost all his college work under CentOS. Most of his papers are submitted electronically, but occasionally he has to print one.
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
DaveM
Hi Dave,
I have 2 lasers one BW and the other colour. The BW printer is a Brother 5250DN (N for network) and a samsung CLP-310 also network capable. The samsung comes with linux drivers on a CD. Both are ery affordable and work well with linux.
HP has several consumer level laser printers available, most of them with Postscript built in. I have a CP1518ni which I got at Sam's Club for US$289. No problems using it from Ubuntu, Slackware, Fedora or CentOS. Even with the 1/3 capacity toner cartridges it came with, it cost less than just the ink jet cartridges would have before we had to buy another set.
Bob McConnell N2SPP
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 4:48 AM, Phil Savoie psavoie1783@rogers.com wrote:
David McGuffey wrote:
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
Hi Dave,
I have 2 lasers one BW and the other colour. The BW printer is a Brother 5250DN (N for network) and a samsung CLP-310 also network capable. The samsung comes with linux drivers on a CD. Both are ery affordable and work well with linux.
I use a Brother HL2140 - it runs between $40 and $120, depending on where you get it, and the toner cartridges are around $35 or less each. It works just fine with CentOS (I'd bet any Brother printer does) under CUPS, but you might have to do a little google searching to find the right driver. It's a USB-only printer, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Caveat: the toner cartridge is only good for about 3000 copies, and it's kind of small, unlike a lot of others. However, the whole printer is simplicity itself, the toner and drum cartridges are trivial to replace, and it has a per-sheet feeder for special paper needs.
I strongly recommend doing a lot of searching for each purchase of toner and drum cartridges because they vary widely in price, though not a whole lot in quality, and they are constantly changing (applies to all printer supplies).
I used to have a Minolta laser printer that was a fair bit more expensive on the toner and drums, but they also lasted a lot longer (6000 sheets per toner, 20,000+ per drum). One day, I couldn't get it to stop printing gray all over every page, so I found the Brother.
I would avoid Samsung printers (now) because most of the people I've heard from about them indicate that the inexpensive ones are inexpensive for a reason (i.e., cheap crap), unlike Brother. Any HP would be fine - they have great Linux support. I would also avoid Canon (inkjets) like the plague - the color is great, but they break down frequently, if you can find a Linux driver for them. My wife has a Canon on her Windows PC, and it is the fifth or sixth of a series of "free" printers we got over a period of a few years, all due to warranty replacements (the others all failed), plus their newer printers have custom ink cartridges that are expensive and getting smaller. Don't know about Canon lasers, although Canon has been extremely Linux-unfriendly with their printers (love their cameras).
I would also avoid anything by Lexmark - I've never had any good results with them, and I've never heard of any, either. Don't even know if you can use them with Linux....
I'd stick with Brother or HP.
Okay, that's a lot, probably too much.
Good luck!
mhr
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 07:28:24AM -0800, MHR wrote:
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 4:48 AM, Phil Savoie psavoie1783@rogers.com wrote:
David McGuffey wrote:
What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
Hi Dave,
I have 2 lasers one BW and the other colour. The BW printer is a Brother 5250DN (N for network) and a samsung CLP-310 also network capable. The samsung comes with linux drivers on a CD. Both are ery affordable and work well with linux.
I use a Brother HL2140 - it runs between $40 and $120, depending on where you get it, and the toner cartridges are around $35 or less each. It works just fine with CentOS (I'd bet any Brother printer does) under CUPS, but you might have to do a little google searching to find the right driver. It's a USB-only printer, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Caveat: the toner cartridge is only good for about 3000 copies, and it's kind of small, unlike a lot of others. However, the whole printer is simplicity itself, the toner and drum cartridges are trivial to replace, and it has a per-sheet feeder for special paper needs.
One more data point: My Brother HL2070N works great on linux. no hassles, no searching to find drivers. Brother HL2060 driver works like a charm. but it's a discontinued model. now ther eis HL2170<something> which seems to be similar and I'd guess it also works fine, but I don't know that.
I would avoid Samsung printers (now) because most of the people I've heard from about them indicate that the inexpensive ones are inexpensive for a reason (i.e., cheap crap), unlike Brother. Any HP would be fine - they have great Linux support. I would also avoid Canon (inkjets) like the plague - the color is great, but they break down frequently, if you can find a Linux driver for them. My wife has a Canon on her Windows PC, and it is the fifth or sixth of a series of "free" printers we got over a period of a few years, all due to warranty replacements (the others all failed), plus their newer printers have custom ink cartridges that are expensive and getting smaller. Don't know about Canon lasers, although Canon has been extremely Linux-unfriendly with their printers (love their cameras).
No experience with Samsung printers. I've heard of some people having good results, some not.
I would also avoid anything by Lexmark - I've never had any good results with them, and I've never heard of any, either. Don't even know if you can use them with Linux....
Lexmark inkjets for sure are almost universally unsupported on Linux. Years ago they had a fairly high-end inkjet with a PostScript engine pasted onto the back (under a plastic bubble) and it worked great. I wore one of 'em out. but the ink is a killer.
I've heard that their laser printers are good and do work on LInux, but again I have no experience.
I'm certainly pleased with my Brother laser. it's printed somewhere in the range of 4000-5000 pages on the original toner cartridge and one replacement. the replacement is near ready for another replacement, but that's better life than they claim. It "just works."
-
Barry Brimer -
Bob McConnell -
David McGuffey -
fred smith -
John R Pierce -
Louis Lagendijk -
m.roth＠5-cent.us -
MHR -
Phil Savoie -
rainer＠ultra-secure.de -
Robert Heller -
Stephen Harris