[Computerbank] Linux printers survey

[bob parker]

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 00:04, Tony Calenti wrote:
> Hi Everyone.
>
> I am reviewing and updating the CBV list of recommended printers for
> computer recipients and I would appreciate your feedback. The following are
> some suggested information you could provide. However, feel free to add any
> further relevant comments or info.
>
Tony,

I cannot speak too highly of HP printers for Linux. They are said to be just 
about as good as Cannon at the photo end but without the software issues.

For myself I am using a cheapie, the HP deskjet 3325 for which I paid all of 
$49 at Officeworks. That seems to be the price because it has been still 
there at that price for some weeks, so it's not a once off special.

It comes with b&w and colour cartridge which seem to have a reasonable life. 
The cartridges are expensive ie the cheapest way to buy replacement 
cartridges is to toss the printer and buy another. OTOH they are quite 
refillable with a little care.

The software setup was a doddle, all I had to do was download the hpijs-1.4.1 
tarball from HP's deskjet site on sourceforge and compile it following the 
instructions from the site. I then configured it using cups.

It works under KDE, OpenOffice, Acrobat reader, Mozilla, and gvim. KMail 
works sort of but does not paginate properly. ( I'm talking KDE 2.2 on Woody 
here)

Some apps invoke lp or lpr when you print from them, both work. So you can 
also lp or lpr a file directly.

These are the packages I have installed:
cupsomatic-ppd		install
cupsys			install
cupsys-bsd		install
cupsys-client		install
cupsys-driver-gimpprint	install
cupsys-pstoraster		install
kdelibs3-cups		install
libcupsys2		install

I don't know if the driver is available prepackaged in any current distros, 
it will be interesting to see if fedora has it when I install it on another 
box.

IMO HP deserve the utmost support, not only for excellent products at a good 
price but their drivers are now fully open source compliant.

My 2 bits
Bob Parker