Very Computer

Linux printer support still appears to be less than advertised.

Are there any printers that are FULLY supported under Linux? By that I mean,
all the features available under Windows or MAC are also available under
Linux, e.g. envelope printing, etc.

My Samsung ML-1210 laser printer works exactly the same way under Windows
& Linux. I bought it for GBP 89 (x 1.5 in $)

--

jabali

If a printer supports PostScript or PCL
(Hewlett-Packard's Printer Control Language), its a good
bet that there is a Linux driver.  Check the
printer-HOWTO.  I believe it lists supported printers.
Check manufacturer web sites for technical details on
printer driver support.  All but the cheapest usually
support some version of PCL.

The features that you mention are a function of
software.  Open Office might have built in support for
envelopes.  I would write a simple program that would
use TeX/LaTeX for the formatting.  Or maybe troff or
Postscript;  you have many choices.

A buddy of mine has made what almost seems to be a career of getting
Lexmark laser printers off E-bay for ~$50 US including cartridge
(normally worth more than that on its own)

wonderful printers

anything that does postscript will do for Linux

richard

--
Richard C. Pitt                 C.E.O. Belcarra Technologies

Software Systems - design and implementation: Internet, Linux, Communications
USB, RNDIS, ATM, E-mail, SQL, Encryption, Security, Web, Embedded Systems

I've recently installed 2 different HP printers under Linux. I always liked
HP for inket printers anyway, i favour them more now they support almost all
of their printer lines under linux.

I setup a HP 5550C deskjet under Mandrake 8.2 manually with cups, foomatic
and samba, then installed the universal postscript driver on any windows
machines wishing to print. just point the windows machine to the HP5550C
.ppd that foomatic makes for you and bonza, lovely colour prints at an
amazing rate of knots from a weird as hell looking printer.

The other printer I setup was a HP 610C deskjet, but that was setup was
slightly different. The printer was on a windows host, and the Redhat 8.0
installation was printing using samba. Still, all i had to do was put in the
queue name, tell it to use PCL3 to talk to the printer and lovely...
openoffice printing happily. Redhat 8.0 was using lpr-ng however, as opposed
to cups.

I honestly expected it to be more work than it was.

cheerio

Paul

Quote:> Linux printer support still appears to be less than advertised.

> Are there any printers that are FULLY supported under Linux? By that I
mean,
> all the features available under Windows or MAC are also available under
> Linux, e.g. envelope printing, etc.

A good place for information is <URL:http:\\www.linuxprinting.org>.

Quote:> > Are there any printers that are FULLY supported under Linux? By that
> > I mean,
> > all the features available under Windows or MAC are also available under
> > Linux, e.g. envelope printing, etc.

My HP LaserJet 4L prints fine under Linux (with one small operational
bug which is no more than a minor irritation). The Manual Feed and
Economode features can be selected in software, e.g. Open Office, and
are duly acted on by the printer. The printer doesn't have an Envelopes
feature. I have no experience of other printers but would expect that
most can be persuaded to work similarly.

Quote:> If a printer supports PostScript or PCL
> (Hewlett-Packard's Printer Control Language), its a good
> bet that there is a Linux driver.  Check the
> printer-HOWTO.  I believe it lists supported printers.
> Check manufacturer web sites for technical details on
> printer driver support.  All but the cheapest usually
> support some version of PCL.

When you set up CUPS or LPRng, they offer you a list of printer models
to choose from and, for each printer model, a list of drivers. It'd be
worth looking at the list before you acquire your printer to see if your
chosen model is included. As for drivers, the only way I know of to pick
the right one is to try them and choose the best.

What is happening behind the scenes (I think) is that the setup
procedure is identifying the Postscript Printer Description (PPD) file
for your printer/driver combination. The PPD file provides information:

 (1) for the application - telling it what options it should offer
     in the 'printer options' or whatever dialogue - this is where
     your envelope feeding etc comes in; and

 (2) for the backend of the spooler - telling it what driver and
     options it should use for translating the Postscript output
     generated by the aplication into something the printer can
     understand (PCL or whatever).

Another way of getting a PPD file is to use the generator provided on
the linuxprinting.org site to produce one.

Quote:> The features that you mention are a function of
> software.  Open Office might have built in support for
> envelopes.  I would write a simple program that would
> use TeX/LaTeX for the formatting.  Or maybe troff or
> Postscript;  you have many choices.

One thing you need to be aware of is that Open Office and Star Office
don't use the system's PPD files, they have their own and the set of
printers they support is a bit limited. For example, the HP LaserJet 4L
wasn't included; with the nearest substitute, Manual Feed and Economode
didn't work.

This can be solved by copying a suitable PPD file into the place where
Open Office keeps its own PPD files and renaming it with a suitable name
(OO seems to expect PPD files to end in a '.ps' extension). Once I'd
done this, it was included in the list that OO offered when configuring
the printer, and selecting it had the desired effect.

--

    Richard Stonehouse

Avoid the HP DeskJet 656USB like the plague...

It's fully supported in Linux and Windows.  It does an amazing number of
stupid things in both (like, when I tell it to print greyscale, there
are ALWAYS blue and yellow splotches in images), which makes it appear
to be a hardware problem.  But it did only cost me $30 retail, which
includes half a cartridge of color and half a cartridge of black.  Just
don't say I didn't warn you.

My family has used HPs for probably 5 years, right after we retired our
dot matrix Star Rainbow NX2420 (I think) printer, and they seem to be of
middling quality, and most DeskJets are basically brainless (PCL = lower
cost, less printer memory, more host computer processing cycles needed).

But, it seems that the number of linux printers totally unsupported is
shrinking by the minute.  Try www.linuxprinting.org - if it's listed
there, then I'd predict a 99.9% chance of getting it working.  And,
IMVHO, the Linux print quality exceeds that of Windows, especially for
text documents, for the HPs that I've worked with.

As I understand it, envelope printing is more a requirement of your
software (e.g. OpenOffice) than your hardware - so long as your printer
can handle the thickness of the envelope, and you can set up the page
right (landscape printing, set the margins right), I don't think
envelope printing is a problem.

Andrew Jenkins