[nzlug] Being a lazy burger....

[Volker Kuhlmann]

On Mon 02 Apr 2007 01:18:54 NZST +1200, cr wrote:

Some other points (back on topic) which haven't been mentioned yet.

It seems to me that there is a difference with regards to Linux support
between the really bottom-end cheap inkjets and the more expensive
models. At the low end manufacturers are fighting it out with cheaper
components which are often proprietory, so manufacturers coulnd't make
an OSS driver even if they wanted to. (Using different components is not
a practical option in the real world.) This happened to scanners - there
are very few if any cheap scanners on the market with good OSS drivers.

Applause to those manufacturer(s) who make OSS drivers anwyay. Time to
point out that Epson has always had good Linux support (as far as OSS
goes) because they made specs available at least for their higher-end
printers, although they don't make drivers themselves. Canon is
hopeless. HP is very good only recently. (And the one hplip I'm using
doesn't work - big margins inserted left and top on second and
consecutive pages.)

At the high-end photo (inkjet) printer market Epson and Canon are
dishing it out with each other. HP never gets a mention by professionals
as far as I can tell. HP is an office printer company. Good for those
only looking for an office printer, not necessarily satisfactory for
purposes beyond that. (Yes they all print photos, but that's another
thread.)

The printing problem isn't only with manufacturer printer drivers, but
with CUPS & Co too. A bit over 4 years ago I bought turboprint because
OSS was next to useless. (Useful results count, never mind the price.
Arguments a la "well what you paid them bla bla" are silly, they don't
get my job done.) Much work has gone into gimpprint and it was looking
pretty good - choice is good here. Then gutenprint comes along, and
enforces 15mm margin top, left, right, and 20mm at the bottom. On a
margin-less printer. Previously, editing the printable area in the PPD
file to 1mm margins had the intended effect (well had with turboprint).
Not so with gutenprint - the printable area is hard-compiled into the
driver!! Then printing front-ends / application interfaces are foolishly
made to only scale to printable area. Not only mandatory big margins, it
screws the page image too. Back to low-level netpbm-type command line.
Acroread (which I am not a fan of) gives the options page scaling =
none, fit to page, and 2 others. Since OSS is non-performing, it's back
to turboprint (again). For over 4 years (with one minor exception on
64bit once), it has given dependable results and just worked. Not
something new every 12 months which still doesn't work right.

I don't feel like buying an HP inkjet just because their driver might
work better. But when using turboprint anyway, the choice of printer is
wide open - its model support is superb, I hear even the Canons work
very well...

Volker

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