Hello, everyone. I would like to buy a color laser printer for my wife. She uses SuSE 11.0 and is waiting for 11.1 to show up on our front step.
The printer would be used primarily for letters, but she also wants to print pictures on good quality photo paper. Her current printer is an HP Photosmart 1100 ink jet, but wife has been very unhappy with the (un)reliability of the ink jet cartridges.
I’m thinking HP again for the laser printer, but would consider any brand with excellent Linux support. I read through the posts on this hardware forum but did not see anything particularly helpful as far as 11.0 or 11.1.
Any real life recommendations? I realize that I can find info on driver support at linuxprinters.org, but I’m looking for current user experience with the newest versions of SuSE.
We do not need an all-in-one unit. Just something that prints good quality and is reasonably priced. (What’s reasonable??)
as that is the site maintained by enthusiasts; they have good advice there on printers; if you fossick around you will find discussions on colour printers;
lexmark seems to make printer drivers for its laser printers, but is awful for inkjet printers; so big difference within manufacturers;
we have been very pleased with an entry level B+W laser: Samsung ML-2010 and I think their colour lasers get a “perfect” in openprinting; and I think the same for brother;
I remember folks saying the cheaper printers were proprietary drivers: LBP and the more expensive printers were postscript, so drivable by various open source postscript printers
> Hello, everyone. I would like to buy a color laser printer for my wife.
> She uses SuSE 11.0 and is waiting for 11.1 to show up on our front step.
Avoid using printers using GDI. Go for a Postscript or PCL printer,
preferably PostScript. That way, even if there was no specific Linux driver
for your model, you can just use the PPD file from the Windows driver and
you’re off.
“GDI” means “Graphical Device Interface” and is a software API created by Microsoft through which applications communicate with the drivers of graphical output devices, as printers or graphics cards. “GDI” is not a hardware protocol, the hardware protocols of GDI printers can be completely different, even between models of the same manufacturer. For Windows users this is no problem, as every printer comes with a driver CD containing a driver exactly for the particular printer.
For users of operating systems not supported by the printer’s manufacturer, as GNU/Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, …, these printers are a big problem.
I’ll second that, though my samsung isn’t a color laser printer but a mono printer… the drivers are more than excellent compared to any printer I’ve had before.
>
> Hello, everyone. I would like to buy a color laser printer for my wife.
> She uses SuSE 11.0 and is waiting for 11.1 to show up on our front step.
>
>
> The printer would be used primarily for letters, but she also wants to
> print pictures on good quality photo paper. Her current printer is an
> HP Photosmart 1100 ink jet, but wife has been very unhappy with the
> (un)reliability of the ink jet cartridges.
>
> I’m thinking HP again for the laser printer, but would consider any
> brand with excellent Linux support. I read through the posts on this
> hardware forum but did not see anything particularly helpful as far as
> 11.0 or 11.1.
>
> Any real life recommendations? I realize that I can find info on driver
> support at linuxprinters.org, but I’m looking for current user
> experience with the newest versions of SuSE.
>
> We do not need an all-in-one unit. Just something that prints good
> quality and is reasonably priced. (What’s reasonable??)
>
> Thanks for your suggestions.
> socref
>
>
Don’t know how much you want to spend. I’ve been using a Xerox Phaser 6120 4
color printer since 10.3, presently on 11.0 and installing 11.1 soon. Its a usb
printer. Only negative is it will not handle photo paper, because it gets to hot
on the drum. Most laser printers will have this type problem from what I’ve been
told. The quality of pictures printed on regular paper, i use xerox color laser
paper, #28 for pictures only and regular #20 bond for letters etc.
The toner is a little expense but the new models use the color sticks instead of
toner. Xerox provides a PPD file for Linux and I have never had a problem using
the older version as the OS and Cups upgrade. Xerox has sales on their printers
and I only paid $399. which was about the same as HP’s good printers. My Xerox
is actually a Konica-Milonta engine.
On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 01:06 +0000, socref wrote:
> Hello, everyone. I would like to buy a color laser printer for my wife.
> She uses SuSE 11.0 and is waiting for 11.1 to show up on our front step.
>
>
…
>
> We do not need an all-in-one unit. Just something that prints good
> quality and is reasonably priced. (What’s reasonable??)
I have an HP CP3505dn… now… they don’t make that one anymore (I
think), even though it’s not terribly old. It’s postscript, networked
and has a duplexer. Costs LESS than almost ANY inkjet over a 2 year
period. I highly recommend it.
I ended up buying an HP CP1518ni. Works great with SuSE 11.1.
Easy to find the right driver. No hassles.
Only issue is the print speed – it’s slow. So highly recommended for home or small office use but only if you don’t need to print a lot or print quickly.
