[TriLUG] Good budget priced inkjet for Linux?

[Mark Shuford]

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 15:43:22 -0400
Chris Hedemark <chrish at trilug.org> wrote:

I've used HP and been quite happy with them on all platforms: DOS, WindBloze (all flavours), VMS, and several varieties of *NIX. QMS had quite a reputation -- now Minolta. And Tektronix seemed to work rather well, too -- now Xerox.

I don't guess any of these come in as cheap...

For print quality I'd have to say that the fancy 7 colour Epson (Stylus Photo 2200) beats just about all I've seen short of 'professional' stuff. Not cheap at $700. I can't say about the physical quality of the thing.

Epson did at one time have some of the best made product out there but as of, say oh.. 10 years ago, you couldn't have paid me to take one of their then current models. 

The Tek colour printers look great too. But wax-based has its own problems. Still for certain uses I'd pick one... graphics house comps and in-house proofs.

For High Capacity printing -- Xerox or perhaps Canon. I've never gotten all this going in an integrated way since places I've worked have had copiers under a different roof from LAN and printing and haven't been at all helpful in letting 'outsiders' (uh... that means people who know what they're talking about) touch them. But the built in Ethernet capabilities of lots of these beasties looks like they'd do wonders.

But since you can get some HPs for about what a cartridge set costs they seem like a good deal. And someone else will be happy to take you're old HP off your hands (for free) and have a working printer for the cost of the cartridges (since you can do that with the heads built into the cart).

But if you don't print a lot you'll just have the clogged head problem again down the road. If you don't do a lot of colour (and have access to a colour printer elsewhere when you need it) I'd look for a used laser printer.

But why worry about all this... It's 2003, man! Don't ya know we're in the age of a paper-less society?  :|  :)  :( 

-- 
Mark Shuford

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
					--Bob Edwards

Visit me at: http://www.krazeemark.com  (Got the blog up...)