[CentOS] College student printer for CentOS 5.4 x86_64?

[MHR]

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 6:27 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at 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