Want a good Linux printer?

dcstimm · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 321

I was looking for a nice quality laser printer, and I ran into the samsung 1430, its a black laser printer, the thing that made me buy it was the fact they supported Linux, even on the box there is a picture of tux. So I went to compusa and they were selling it for $199 with a $50 mail in rebate. So its only $149. This printer is nice and small and FAST. I was also very impressed on how easy it installed. I thought the cd it came with would only have a rpm or something silly, but it had a nice setup.sh script that launched a installer, that installed a gtk gui for cups. Which made installing a breeze. If I had to recommend any printer it would be this one. Im glad more and more manufacturers are jumping onto the linux bandwagon. Does anyone else have any good Linux/hardware stories?

rommel · Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 12:26 am Post subject:

that is cool...i have an epson c80 color inkjet that i like alot...it was supported directly by cups through kde's print manager....there is also a software pkg from epson of japan but i havent insalled it. linux will just get better and better

max_colby · Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 1:31 am Post subject: Samsung ML-1210

I've also had great luck with Samsung Laser printers under Linux. I recently purchased a Samsung ML-1210 (for $300 Canadian), which prints fast, excellent quality output. The printer claims to support Redhat, but easily supports any distro (like Gentoo) because the installion is performed via a .sh install script. The default installation provides printing via CUPS, and includes configuration tools that use Gtk 1.2. The driver is opensource as well.

I've heard good things about HP printers under Linux, now that they have released 'free' drivers. I was close to purchasing an HP Deskjet 5550C, but black output is much more important to me, and the Samsung laser I ended up purchasing prints at a much lower cost per page, as lasers always do in comparision to similarly priced inkjets.

Great work Samsung!

dcstimm · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 321

yep those are the same awesome drivers I installed... They are great

yokem55 · Guru Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Posts: 360 Location: Oregon

My epson 820 is fantastic. After putting up with Lexmark crap for years this thing is a breath of very fresh air.

zypher · Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2002 12:13 pm Post subject:

There is an exellent HP CLJ 4600 in my office and I never thought of trying to check it out with my gentoo-laptop.

What can I say? works like a charm.

The printer has an ethernet port, you configure it manually or via dhcp/bootp.

Then go to linuxprinting.org, generate a pdq-driver. Save the driver file to the right dir.

Then run xpdq (emerge pdq) and configure the printer (ip-num, port 9100) and you're set.

So even the high-end printers work as long as they are supported by linuxprinting.org and I think there are only few that aren't.

And with pdq I can print from every app I have installed and that supports printing.
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counterpt · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2002 Posts: 66

Hi,
Could someone maybe say how they installed it?
I have the Samsung ML-1210.
I'm not sure whether just to run the setup scipt or (their) ghostscipt (or both)
Instructions seem for Redhat and I'm not sure if I should follow those.

Since you seem to have your printers working I thought I'd ask.

Thanks.

counterpt · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2002 Posts: 66

I'm sorry I should be more specific.
I'm using the parallel printer port. I have KDE (with the cups flag) installed.
It's a new install and I don't have ghostscript installed yet.
Thanks

Wedge_ · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 8:23 pm Post subject:

I got the Samsung ML-1210 at Christmas, and it works perfectly. I didn't notice any install scripts though :oops:

I just stuck the .ppd file from the CD where it was supposed to go and installed it from the Add Printer thingie in cups

BlackBart · Apprentice Joined: 07 Oct 2002 Posts: 252

i use a hp5550 works great, hp even provides gpl drivers for it

counterpt · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2002 Posts: 66

Just wanted to post a solution to my problem.
I followed Wedge_'s advice but it didn't work and I found out I forgot to enable parallel printer support in character section in the kernel.

Works great now in cups with no hassle at all.
Thanks.

OpelBlitz · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 6:23 am Post subject:

Kudos to my HP Laserjet 1200. Works wonderfully

hook · Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2003 8:56 am Post subject:

i have a lexmark z33 at the moment and am seriusly considering to throw this peace of garbage through the window and buy another HP ...my old DeskJet 520 works like a charm ...but i can't plug it in

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vers_iq · Apprentice Joined: 18 May 2002 Posts: 264

I think HP makes linux-friendly printer, I'm using a good old folk LaserJet 6L.

simkim · n00b Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 4

I got a Samsung ML-1250 to print my report
I have problem to install there drivers but with "HP LaserJet 5 series, CUPS+GIMP-print v4.2.0" it work directly.
Only one problem it prints in 600x600 but on the box they say that it prints in 1200x1200. I don't know if it's better. I print already in a good quality

fumtu99 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2002 Posts: 59

Well, I recently got a ML-1430 myself, but I haven't been able to get it to work w/ CUPS at all; if I try to send a test print to it, it creates a print job which immediately becomes "finished" and never puts anything out. If I look at the job w/ the CUPS web page, it shows up as "aborted", and if I try restarting it it comes back w/ a "client-error-not-possible" error msg. I seem to be able to send data to the printer using the raw /dev/lp0 device; I can get it's data light to blink, although nothing ever seems to print. Right now I'm tempted to unmerge CUPS and try using the version that came w/ the printer - it seems to be approximately the same version, 1.1. Jeez, I wish that this printer was one that was supported w/ foomatic - I had no trouble at all, w/ my old Epson Stylus 440... So has anyone else had similar problems? I'd guess that the queue/spooling is hosed somehow, but it's not like I've spent a lot of time doing this kind of thing before, and so far I haven't found any good description of that error msg. Oh well!

James

OpelBlitz · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 6:09 pm Post subject:

Those Samsung printers have "Linux-Compatible" written all over the stupid box, I don't know how you're having problems. Hehe

jimbo · n00b Joined: 17 Apr 2003 Posts: 31

Samsung ML-1210 here as well...with one of those nifty pocket-print-servers. Works perfectly with cups and the ppd file from linuxprinting.org!

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ebichu · Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 5:33 pm Post subject:

fumtu99 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2002 Posts: 59

A little update on my adventures, trying to get th ML-1430 to work w/ my version of Gentoo: I started paying a bit more attention to what was happening when I'd try to run the setup.sh (either the one that came with the printer, OR the one from a D/L at the Samsung site, mentioned in some other threads here), setting the log level to "debug" in /etc/cups/cupd.conf, and paying more attention to what was going on in the xterm window, rather than just seeing the msgs that the process popped up, which would say that the installation was successful. The terminal window was interesting, in that there was a segfault occurring, which I think was being caused by the shell script running either "check" or "cfggen", but the rest of the msgs made it seem like things were working; however, if I tried to do a test print, nothing would happen - either the job would show up as "aborted" or it would hang forever in CUPS's job queue. At this point, looking at the CUPS error log file showed that the system was trying to use filter files (gdiprint, for example) and/or an "/etc/linuxprint.cfg" XML file that did not exist. I'm guessing that that segfault is probably causing the setup to be incomplete, and that the segfault is probably due to the program being compiled with an earlier GCC (my system only has GCC 3.2.2 on it, and everything's been compiled with that). Unfortunately, Samsung doesn't provide source code that I can compile, at least not anyplace I've looked so far. So I guess the next thing for me to try is to find a roughly compatible Samsung driver at linuxprinting.org.

Oh, BTW, I've also got Mandrake 9.1 in separate partitions on my system; the install did not work any better there, either, with approximately the same symptoms. Once again a 2.4 20 or 2.4.21 kernel, GCC 3.2.2, etc., so if my suspicions are correct, that's not too surprising....

James

fumtu99 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2002 Posts: 59

Yippee! Finally figured out a way to get my ML-1430 to work! I figure I'll post here, if someone else is having as much fun as I did. First of all, don't even bother trying to use any of the Samsung s/w that came with your machine; at least on my machine, it appears that one of the executables (I think it's cfggen) is either compiled with an earlier version of GCC (earlier than 3.2.2, which is all I've got on my system) or an old glibc - this becomes apparent if you try to run the Samsung setup.sh from the command line, as a segmentation fault will appear in the terminal window, although the various msgs that the s/w otherwise puts out will lead you to believe that things might have worked. (BTW, you'll probably want to uninstall that software, which will be either a "samsung-uninstall" or "linux-uninstall", depending on whether you're using the version of the software found on the CDROM that comes w/ the printer, or the one d/l-ed from Samsung's site. It, too will produce some segfault msgs, but it otherwise seems to do a good job, except possibly leaving a link behind in /usr/lib/cups/filters...) I haven't figured out how to emerge gimp-print-cups and ghostscript - there are unsatisified dependencies that I'm disinclined to look at further - but gimp-print and ghostscript will work together fine, so if you've got gimp-print-cups installed, unmerge it, then emerge ghostscript (gimp-print is a dependency of ghostscript, so it will get picked up, too). The latest versions appear to work fine for me, without having to do any internal tweaking, but I did them so many times and in various orders that I'm not sure if I did something to make that happen better. Then there are some things that you'll need to get from linuxprinting.org: foomatic version 3 (foomatic-filters, foomatic-db-engine, foomatic-db, each as a source tarball, findable at http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic.html, under "Full Downloads", untar each into its own directory, connect to each in turn, do a "./configure --prefix=/usr", followed by a "make" and a "make install" for the filters and db-engine directories, and just a "make install" for the db directory. Finally, you'll need a ppd file; I used the "Generic GDI Printer" ppd file downloadable from http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=gdi It will be necssary to edit this file, and change occurences of "gdi" to "samsunggdi". Then, since I haven't tweaked any NLS stuff and it's not active in my CUPS system, I copied it into /usr/share/cups/models/C/. Finally, it becomes possible to add the printer using the CUPS web page; I specified a print queue of "samsung", a location and description, a device of "USB printer #1" (you'll have to enable this in your kernel, or select the appropriate parallel port, otherwise), a make of "Generic", and a model of "Generic GDI Printer, foomatic + samsunggdi". If all this is done, it should now be possible to print a test page.

There may be simpler ways to do this than what I've described, but I believe I've listed all the steps for ONE way. (Oh, there was one other thing that I did, but I suspect that I was just redoing something that had been part of the ghostscript install: after emerging ghostscript (with "noclean" set in the FEATURES of my /etc/make.conf), I went down into the /var/tmp/portage/ghostscript-xxxx/work/espgs-xxx/ijs directory, did a "./configure --prefix=/usr", "make" and "make install", as per another thread here; I did NOT remerge gimp-print thereafter, as that thread suggested, though, and it appeared that maybe something has been fixed in the ebuilds to where this is not really necessary - I'm not sure, but I'll add it here, in case that it is...) Once you figure out how to hold your mouth right, it's not all that huge a job; the main problem is all the OTHER things that you end up trying, before finding what works.

BTW, the foomatic steps here are sort of important - without moving up to version 3, I don't believe that you'll get foomatic-rip, a backend filter for CUPS that I believe is invoked by the ppd file.

Hope this saves someone else some time! (In fact there was another thread from a guy that was having trouble with an ML-1440 - I think I'll add a reference to this thread...)

James

PowerFactor · Posted: Tue May 20, 2003 7:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks for posting this dcstimm. After reading a few reviews I ordered one from compusa.com, got it yesterday. At $125 after the $50 rebate it seemed like a great deal. I really like it so far, time will tell.
fumtu99, I don't know why you had problems, the supplied software wcrked fine for me, I'm running glibc-2.3.1-r4 and gcc-3.2.2. Perhaps you needed lib-compat. It was the smoothest install of a printer under linux I've ever experienced. One of the few hardware purchases I've made lately that I haven't been disgusted with from the get-go. :wink:

chrysalis · n00b Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 32

Can anyone suggest a good inkjet printer that works well with Linux to print photos?

I have a Deskjet 970C that works with cups+hpijs+rss. Unfortunately and despite the HP drivers, when it comes to printing photos, the quality is not as good as it is on Windows.

Donovan · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 12:57 am Post subject:

Woofles · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:00 am Post subject:

I have a lexmark x83 that i have yet to get working under linux :cry:

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