Printer/scanner

Mr. Brightside · 22 Sep 2010 at 11:06

I'm going to get a combi printer/scanner from OcUK at some point over the next week or so. I'll be using it with Ubuntu 10.04 (soon 10.10).

What printer/scanners have you found to work best with Linux?

Cheers,
Mr. Brightside

tntcoder · 22 Sep 2010 at 11:17

Use CUPS for printing and SANE for scanning.

Supported Scanners: http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html

Most printer manufactures are quite good with releasing CUPS ppd drivers, there is a list here: http://www.cups.org/ppd.php but it isn't extensive, just check with the manufacturer instead.

Cant recommend anything specifically, but it will either work or it wont so find one you like and confirm driver availability

Evil-I · 22 Sep 2010 at 13:26

Worth looking at the turboprint driver. My slightly older canon photoprinter (i865) wasn't well supported by CUPS. It seemed to limit print resolution and generally didn't give very good results. The turboprint driver unlocked all the features and quality that my printer was capable of and meant that i could use my linux server as our house print server without compromising print quality and features.

Only down side? You have to pay for turboprint. its about $30 I think.

E-I

FirebarUK · 22 Sep 2010 at 13:58

HP without a doubt. Miles ahead of competitors in terms of Linux support, thanks to this: http://hplip.sourceforge.net

Evil-I · 22 Sep 2010 at 17:03

HP without a doubt. Miles ahead of competitors in terms of Linux support, thanks to this: http://hplip.sourceforge.net

Actually quite impressed by this, HPs windows drivers tend to be awful! Their domestic products have masses of bloatware that takes hours to install and thier drivers for thier high end business lasers can be flakey as hell.

Mr. Brightside · 22 Sep 2010 at 17:29

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll probably get the HP Deskjet F2480. It has the nice properties of a) being the cheapest printer and scanner OcUK do and b) having the most evidence suggesting it will work nicely in terms of software.

Paying for a piece of software - especially on an open source system - in order to use a printer seems a bit horrific, but good to know of nonetheless.

FirebarUK · 22 Sep 2010 at 20:29

Mr. Brightside said:
Paying for a piece of software - especially on an open source system - in order to use a printer seems a bit horrific, but good to know of nonetheless.

HPLIP is FOSS ? Don't need to pay for anything. Have I misunderstood?

Mr. Brightside · 22 Sep 2010 at 20:35

FirebarUK said:
HPLIP is FOSS ? Don't need to pay for anything. Have I misunderstood?

I was referring to turboprint

FirebarUK · 22 Sep 2010 at 21:14

Mr. Brightside said:
I was referring to turboprint

Aaaaah that explains it

Evil-I · 24 Sep 2010 at 15:17

I should point out that I ended up paying for turboprint as my particular printer (Canon Photo stylus i865) wasn't well supported by CUPS (it would only print at 360dpi in Linux when its capable of 1440 or higher) it might be that other printers aren't a problem.

What i will say is that turboprint has a lot more control than any of the CUPS drivers I have used, it almost gives print process level control of everything, so if you do a lot of photo printing etc, its still worth considering, and in my case it was a better and cheaper option than buying a dedicated print server as my linux server is on 24/7 anyway.

Anyway, I don't resent paying for software even for a open source system, because in my case it just works better.

E-I