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  • #11
    which is valid. Inkjets can print to things lasers cannot. However i strongly suggest a laser printer if you have the use and money. It would prolly pay for itself if you used it enough.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by Kano View Post
      And which color laser can be used for cd/dvd printing?
      Good luck getting it through the rollers.

      Better idea: http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/ca..._Basic+Markers

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      • #13
        Originally posted by droidhacker View Post
        Inkjet?
        You actually ***WANT*** an inkjet?
        There's your problem right there. Not HP, but INKJET.
        They're ALL GARBAGE.

        Inkjets are the things that get given out FOR FREE because they're GARBAGE.

        Get a laser.
        Seriously.
        There's TONS of CHEAP COLOR LASERS... Cheapest I've seen is $125 CDN for an okidata C110, and ALL color laser printers are better than ANY inkjunk.
        This is total nonsense. Both systems have advantages.
        Laser is like a typography, it rollouts and goes, and goes and goes. It has high operating costs, but low per-page. They are champions for details, but not for juicy looks. Its noisy, its tonor is scientifically confirmed to cause cancer.

        Inkjets are like painters. Their ink may be nondistiguishable to laser in b/w prints. Their per-page costs are higher. But they are unmatched when it comes to photography and paint work. They are much better then laser only exception being high professional systems that are used at document printing(money etc), but they cost a lot and require personel to operate. Modern inks are very resistant to rupture and UV, dry fast, print very accurately. However you also need special paper for best results, but same also applies to color laser printers afaik, the paper should be able to handle the ink amounts correctly.

        And when you want pure b/w system with lowest running cost, nothing beats dot-matrix printers. But they slowly die-out due to noise and low speed.

        When speaking of inkjet technology, you should also know that there are systems which have ink containter and printing head integrated and sold as one unit AND systems that have separated ink container and printing head.

        The first one catridge unit cost is higher, because you also buy new printhead integrated; but this also means your prints will be of higher quality and when purchasing HIGH capacity ink containers (like HP XL catriges with 900 pages cap.) it is actually pretty ok. Integrated head system also has an advantage that it does not need to clean its heads, it simply seals them when unused, which means it needs 30 seconds warmup before each print, but it never needs to recalibrate and clean the head like the ones discussed later. If you want cheap printing with printers deploying this technology, your best bet is using high capacity catridges or refilling the ink head with quality ink(like pelikan). HP uses this.

        The other technology, ie using separated ink and head, makes ink cost cheaper. Theoretically. The disadvantage is that you are using the old head with new ink and will probably need to replace it sometime when it starts to make *fun*. Heads are usually by far not cheap, when sold separately. Additinally ink head needs to clean itself, which takes place once per week or so, lasts 15-30 minutes(!) AND ink is consumed during this process. You can also refill and use alternative ink with this system. Brother and Kodak use this.

        The last thing to know is either the color system uses integrated 3/4-in-one color catridge or color catridge is separated into individual parts. Integrated is seen in cheap systems and it not good. Officially you have to throw away the color catrige if only ONE color is used up. This can be seen as a rip-off but nearly all manufacturers do this. Unofficially you can refill the catridges. More advanced systems use separated CMY containers, all refillable.

        You should not confuse rip-off systems with inkjets. There were dot-matrix rip-offs, even laser ripoffs exist with toner costs reaching the sky. There are a lot of smart-ass manufacturers that do everything so you pay more, inkjet is no exception. The biggest loosers are Lexmark(german Stiftung Warentest has estimated one model to produce color prints with cost of 3? PER COLOR PAGE!). While lexmark uses integrated head; Brother, while selling ink separately from heads, is also not by far the cheapest. Epson is known to simply use up too much ink. HP is known to do this long ago with its entry level models.

        Yesterday I had purchased TWO Kodak AIO 5250 only to discover its totally unsupported on linux. And the sales agent ensured me it would be all fine... Nothing on CD, on Web and nothing good from customer support. While they did support some scanners for linux(half arsed I might add, not SANE, but TWAIN), they totally unwilling to introduce ANY Linux drivers. Luckily the local market(Saturn in Germany) I got them from has taken them back, even after I have unpackaged them(well. I didnt know at all). So far Im going for two B209a from HP today.

        This is a summary what I have discovered about linux printing for normal poor people(50-150$). Im mostly talking about all-in-one inkjets here:

        Brother - opensource drivers, HIGH ink costs, uses up ink quickly, ink catriges mostly separated from heads(2), BAD image drawing quality, some report colors vapor-out(brighten) after some time, GOOD text printing, SLOW printing speed. Good printers for office if you refill or use alternative ink. Never use for photo works.

        HP - opensource gods, drivers with exceptional support, HIGH ink costs if using normal catridges, LOW to MODERATE ink cost if using XL catridges or refilling the ink, ink catridges mostly have integrated heads(1), EXCEPTIONAL quality image drawing even on normal quality paper, GOOD text printing, FAST printing speed. Good printers if you dont buy lowest market segment ones(or read reviews before) - they consume more and known for bugs with paper feeder.

        Epson - ?? Heard consume too much ink, quality comparable to HP, not linux friendly(available, but binary drivers?)

        Samsung - once opensource, not nearly dropped linux support. Drivers still accessible, but are binary. Thats all I know.

        Kodak - no drivers. I still managed to print one page via scanner function. LOW ink cost, but 3-in-1 catridges. Not very known, hence didnt find any alternative ink. Ink catridge is separated from printing head(1). OK quality image printing. At least it falls behind HP on non-professional paper and nears it on professional photo-paper. This maybe the reason they are a bit more economical to HP XL catridges. Virtually absent customer support, or more exactly their IQ level. Stupid paper-feed. Ink is very resistant to damage. Prints quickly. Overpriced unit.

        Lexmark - crappy drivers, binary-only. HIGH to INSANE ink costs, however refill variants are much cheaper and accessible. Should I continue?

        Canon - binary drivers. By far not all models supported. I personally had to "fight" three(3) days over Cannon 2900 Laser printer. This is not a driver quality I expect. Low to medium ink costs, very comparable to HP XL catridges. EXCEPTIONAL quality image printing, however some report ink to be of low resistance against UV and rupture. Refillable. Units are a bit better priced than HP.

        Hope it helps someone.

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        • #14
          There are also CISS system, which means infite ink from external container. Lookup "CISS b109a" on youtube. Usually only acceptable when printing large amounts of photography.

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          • #15
            I just want to bump this to say that this didn't help anyone and not me, the OP.

            I want to object to HP as the 'opensource' Gods. I'm really sick and tired of Linux users praising so-called opensource companies as they're above everyone. ATI, HP, are crap companies with inferior support and subpar products. HP, especially, is garbage. Their product quality has gone into the toilet. I really don't give a damn about open source if the product is a piece of garbage. If the product is not usable, then it can be fully open source, it doesn't matter. This is common sense but praising an inferior product with poor support is not praiseworthy.

            I will be boycotting these companies from now on.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by Panix View Post
              I just want to bump this to say that this didn't help anyone and not me, the OP.

              I want to object to HP as the 'opensource' Gods. I'm really sick and tired of Linux users praising so-called opensource companies as they're above everyone. ATI, HP, are crap companies with inferior support and subpar products. HP, especially, is garbage. Their product quality has gone into the toilet. I really don't give a damn about open source if the product is a piece of garbage. If the product is not usable, then it can be fully open source, it doesn't matter. This is common sense but praising an inferior product with poor support is not praiseworthy.

              I will be boycotting these companies from now on.
              I have two B209A from HP. Im using 3.9 hplip, cups and sane.
              Everything WORKS. Scanning is good and fast. I can set all options in Xsane. Printing works awesomely - papertrays, quality, paper sort - all works. ZERO problems. I have no idea what you are talking about, bro. The install was quick and easy on gentoo.

              I have scanned A4 pages with 1200dpi and successfully printed them (2Gb ram usage in gimp btw). Quick and painless.

              Two years ago I had overnight fight with Canon LBP2900(I think), bw laserjet. I have given up. I had to write udev rules to bring up proprietary ps2proprietary blob converter, that consumed all cpu resources even on simple text pages.

              If you wish I can send you proof photos.

              Yeah, I respect HP. AMD, yes, maybe they suck in two points:
              - slow progress
              - little force behind their opensource attempt

              But I still hate nvidia. Most of the time it works, but when it breaks no one is to help you. And they deviate Xorg, make it their way, drop support whenever they want it(I have 10 gf4 cards lying around, as well as first ever radeon(R100)).

              So I respect AMD and HP way more than nvidia or canon.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by Panix View Post
                I just want to bump this to say that this didn't help anyone and not me, the OP.

                I want to object to HP as the 'opensource' Gods. I'm really sick and tired of Linux users praising so-called opensource companies as they're above everyone. ATI, HP, are crap companies with inferior support and subpar products. HP, especially, is garbage. Their product quality has gone into the toilet. I really don't give a damn about open source if the product is a piece of garbage. If the product is not usable, then it can be fully open source, it doesn't matter. This is common sense but praising an inferior product with poor support is not praiseworthy.

                I will be boycotting these companies from now on.
                What hp hardware are you refering btw?

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                  What hp hardware are you refering btw?
                  Forget this, topic is so old, I forgot you were the topic starter.
                  Now.
                  Lets see how its better to go shopping in modern world.

                  Study here: http://www.amazon.com/HP-PhotoSmart-...8714544&sr=8-1

                  And here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

                  You will read about possible paper jam, that is clear the engineering problem. I wont buy it.

                  If you printer fails to align, there is something really really bad happend to head positioning mechanism. Mine aligned instantly and I have already done it several times.

                  The thing with HP printers where they require time to start up, which is often criticized, is because of the way they handle the necessary head cleaning. They park it every time they go off and they clean it every time on start. It takes time(15-20 secs). They produce sounds, yes. But then it is set to print. Others dont do it, they just park/unpark heads without cleaning. Then they start running 20 minutes cleaning cycle every week. And if they miss it, there is high probability ink dries up in the head. I prefer the HP way.

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                  • #19
                    I bought a cheap HP Deskjet D1600, plugged it in, installed hplip, and it "just worked" on Kubuntu 10.10 (I haven't tried it on my main Debian system because I don't want to install a bunch of printing crap on it when I rarely print stuff).

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                    • #20
                      I finally was able get gutenprint works in Gimp. I have a HP Office Jet pro L7680 and now I can print photos directly from Gimp. On the other hand, the cute Photoprint does not support my printer yet.

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