All-In-One printer recommendation: HP Officejet J5785

After many troubles with other inkjet printers/faxes, and having read
the recent comparative review of all-in-one printers in the German
magazine c't, I bought a Hewlett-Packard Officejet J5785 All-In-One
Printer/Fax/Scanner/Copier, and I'd like to share with y'all how pleased
I am with the way it works with Linux, specifically openSUSE 10.3.

The main hurdle was not believing how simple it was. I went out of my
way to try and extract the manual from the Windows-only CDs I found in
the box, which turned out to be completely unnecessary because that
manual was equally Windows-only. In fact, the printer part was detected
automatically the moment I plugged in the USB cable. Not believing that,
I went and ran the "hp-setup" program which is part of the hplip package
and worked perfectly fine, even setting up the fax ID of the device for me.

The scanner part was easily set up with YaST's Scanner Configuration
tool and works perfectly too with (easy to guess) the "HP J5700 Series"
setting.

It looks as if even sending faxes from Linux should work, but since I'm
not too interested that I haven't actually tried it yet.

There are still a few rough edges, probably because I did something
wrong. (You'll see postings about these here soon. ;-)

All in all, heartily recommended.

HTH
T.

Tilman,

thanks for the recommendation! I have a PSC2610 All-in-one myself and it is similarly easy. Unfortunately it is no longer available. HP has by far the best printer support for Linux in the SOHO area, and for me it is a no-brainer when I need a new printer for Linux....

Uwe


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Uwe Buckesfeld a écrit :
> Tilman,
>
> thanks for the recommendation! I have a PSC2610 All-in-one myself and it
> is similarly easy. Unfortunately it is no longer available. HP has by
> far the best printer support for Linux in the SOHO area, and for me it
> is a no-brainer when I need a new printer for Linux....
>
> Uwe
>
>
+1

and cheapest ink (ink volume in the cartridge), good ordinary paper
printing...

jdd

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http://www.dodin.net

Uwe Buckesfeld wrote:

> thanks for the recommendation! I have a PSC2610 All-in-one myself and it
> is similarly easy. Unfortunately it is no longer available. HP has by far
> the best printer support for Linux in the SOHO area, and for me it is a
> no-brainer when I need a new printer for Linux....

I guess it's time for me to rethink some things. I've been carrying around
some animosity for HP ever since some unpleasant experiences I had with
them back in my OS/2 days.

Let me throw in a nice word for KonicaMinolta. The magicolor 2430DL
(printer only) came with a windows only CD, but everything worked perfectly
after downloading and installing the appropriate .rpm from the support
site.

Is it just me, or is this sort of thing happening more and more these days?
[Happy Happy Happy! Joy Joy Joy!]

On 05/04/2008 Larry Bristol wrote:
> Let me throw in a nice word for
> KonicaMinolta. The magicolor 2430DL (printer only) came with a
> windows only CD, but everything worked perfectly after downloading
> and installing the appropriate .rpm from the support site.

Minolta is a bit pricey for home use, IMHO. We have some of those high end copier/printer/fax machines here in the office and they all work flawlessly with Linux, yes.


> Is it just
> me, or is this sort of thing happening more and more these days?
> [Happy Happy Happy! Joy Joy Joy!]

Looks like it :-)

Uwe

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Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

Uwe Buckesfeld wrote:
> Minolta is a bit pricey for home use, IMHO. We have some of those high end
> copier/printer/fax machines here in the office and they all work
> flawlessly with Linux, yes.

Remember the days when you could buy a new ink jet printer for less than the
cost of a replacement ink cartridge? I got tired of the hassle and poor
quality, so decided to look into laser printers. I found an online
retailer with a brand new (not refurbished) network capable KM magicolor
2430DL for under $300!

Unless prices have changed since I last checked, that's about the same as
the cost of replacing all 4 toner cartridges! Granted, cartridges that
come with a new printer are not 100% full. But since I'm still using the
originals, they must not be too bad!

Perhaps it was a pricing mistake. When I placed an order, they started
claiming it was out of stock, inviting me to cancel. It also quickly
disappeared from their web site. When I kept replying that I really wanted
it and would keep waiting, they finally gave up and shipped it!

Sometimes you bite the dog, and sometimes the dog bites you. :-)

On 05/07/2008 Larry Bristol wrote:
> Perhaps it was a pricing mistake.

It is around 500 Euro here, so probably yes :-)

Uwe

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Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

Larry Bristol a écrit :

> retailer with a brand new (not refurbished) network capable KM magicolor
> 2430DL for under $300!

I had my second hand HP5m for ¤25 :-))

> the cost of replacing all 4 toner cartridges! Granted, cartridges that
> come with a new printer are not 100% full. But since I'm still using the
> originals, they must not be too bad!

the printer price is always of little interest, but the cartridge
price *and page number* very important.

there are new HP laser printer for around ¤100, but cartridges are
only for 1500 copies, when laserjet5m are for at least 8000 (cheap) or
15000 (HP) and nearly the same price

jdd


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