Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 16:41:45 -0600 Charles Curley wrote: > I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. > Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the > large ones. I suspect I could buy a printer for what four large > cartridges would cost me. Well, that last sentence turned out to be close. While in the Big City I went by the local Staples, and bought an HP LaserJet MFP M232-M237 - IPP Everywhere printer/scanner for under $250. It took a bit of finagling to get me started, but that turned out to be a problem with my isc-dhcpd DHCP server. Also, setting the thing up requires HP's HP Smart app. I happen to have an iPhone, so I could use it. A pure Linux shop would be SOL. It also took about 38 minutes on the phone with HP's support line. Sigh. Once I had the printer talking to the phone, things moved quickly. The only thing this printer doesn't have is color printing. Apparently color printers are rare right now. But I have a local print shop to whom I can email PDFs, and that works nicely. And the price delta will more than pay for the print shop. I did have one software issue. Debian 10 (Buster) has HPLIP 3.18.12+dfsg0-2, which does not appear to support the beast. However, Debian 11 (Bullseye) xsane (3.21.2+dfsg1-2) found it across the network with no quibbles, and I was able to scan immediately with no setup. Very nice. Thank you for all the advice. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 9/17/21 6:41 PM, Charles Curley wrote: I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the large ones. I suspect I could buy a printer for what four large cartridges would cost me. Requirements: * I print rarely, and I do use color. The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Inkjet or laser? Or other? * Buster and Bullseye should both support any recommendations. I don't use Windows. I've had good results with HP over the years, and they support Linux well. Reccomendations? Obviously ink will get thick or dry completely if you don't use it up in a reasonable time (which is what???) so laserjet is the way to go. I don't think that the powder ever goes bad. --doug
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
Le 18/09/2021 à 17:20, James H. H. Lampert a écrit : On 9/18/21 2:00 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote: The direction of travel for printing is entirely driverless, so this is less important than it used to be. Really? If true, that is exceptionally good news. The last time I looked at new printers, the "direction of travel" was entirely driver-dependent, RIPping the PostScript, PCL, or straight ASCII in the driver, rather than in the printer's own processor and firmware, and anything that could RIP a PostScript data stream directly would have cost a fortune. -- JHHL Hi, I second this, I had to change my printer in a hurry recently and I couldn't find anything I liked locally, so had to settle on an Epson (ink). I had very bad experiences with this brand in the past driver wise, but this time I saw CUPS use automatically the "driver-less" stack and I was printing seconds after plugging the machine in. Maybe it doesn't provide advanced features, but for a simple printer (not "all-in-one" scan/print/whatnot) it works very well, even for image printing.
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 9/18/21 2:19 AM, Jeremy Ardley wrote: My experience is that toner does degrade over a period of years. To get full life you need to use your advertised pages within a year or so. Agreed. I've seen toner cartridges go bad. Of course, they had been sitting on a shelf for *many* years. -- JHHL
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 9/18/21 2:00 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote: The direction of travel for printing is entirely driverless, so this is less important than it used to be. Really? If true, that is exceptionally good news. The last time I looked at new printers, the "direction of travel" was entirely driver-dependent, RIPping the PostScript, PCL, or straight ASCII in the driver, rather than in the printer's own processor and firmware, and anything that could RIP a PostScript data stream directly would have cost a fortune. -- JHHL
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 9/18/21 2:00 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote: On Sat, Sep 18, 2021 at 10:38:03AM +0200, Klaus Singvogel wrote: Charles Curley wrote: I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Rarely printing? I would suggest a laser I agree. Toner doesn't spoil sat there doing nothing for long periods of time, whereas the ink for inkjets can do. The next question then becomes: mono or colour? Brand? The situation current is this, that only HP released their printer drivers as Open Source (at least 99% of them). The direction of travel for printing is entirely driverless, so this is less important than it used to be. And indeed, driverless printing is a lot less of a headache to administrate, IMHO, than drivered - even with open source drivers. If I were looking for a new laser printer today I'd look at Lexmark (on a recommendation from a friend), the firmware for which is apparently based on Yocto Linux. Hello, I have a Lexmark E260dn which has Postscript, double side, Ethernet and USB, parallel, monochrome. It usually works fine but apparently the toner stirrer doesn't work well. The toner light comes on occasionally requiring the toner cartridge to be removed and shaken. The printer is all plastic and not very expensive but the toner cartridges are a bit expensive. The cartridge has a sensor built in that keeps up with the number of copies so you can't refill the cartridge as there is no way to reset the sensor. You have to use Lexmark's exchange program. I don't know if it needs drivers to work with CUPS. I just ftp files to it and it always prints them. I read on this list a few years ago that the best printers are used HP office models. Best regards, Fred
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 04:38:27PM -0600, Charles Curley wrote: > I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. > Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the > large ones. > > First question: > > I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend > to go bad before they empty, Laser, assuredly. I bought a Samsung a few years ago - unfortunately that line has now been bought by HP but it's still good and reasonable. Colour laser - certainly but the consumables are hight cost when you have to replace them. For you that might be once a decade. Networked is very necessary: duplex with a high quality feeder is a thing I wish I'd been able to afford. If you have an office supplies / print shop locally, there's a lot to be said for printing long documents there and having them in a comb binder even if you have got a good printer. I have a separate scanner (or two): unless you go up to the top quality office printers, the MFP quality is not great for scanning. HP is the most likely to be readily available. It's worth pricing up the quality of desktop space/power/wiring taken up vs. actual usage: best printers do tend to be the larger models though I used a tiny mono printer for a few years quite successfully. Hope this helps, Andy Cater > > -- > Does anybody read signatures any more? > > https://charlescurley.com > https://charlescurley.com/blog/ >
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 18/9/21 5:00 pm, Jonathan Dowland wrote: On Sat, Sep 18, 2021 at 10:38:03AM +0200, Klaus Singvogel wrote: Charles Curley wrote: I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Rarely printing? I would suggest a laser I agree. Toner doesn't spoil sat there doing nothing for long periods of time, whereas the ink for inkjets can do. The next question then becomes: mono or colour? My experience is that toner does degrade over a period of years. To get full life you need to use your advertised pages within a year or so. Perhaps this is only for aftermarket cartridges? But overall, the cost per page is still 1-3 cents per page even with light use. -- Jeremy OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On Sat, Sep 18, 2021 at 10:38:03AM +0200, Klaus Singvogel wrote: Charles Curley wrote: I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Rarely printing? I would suggest a laser I agree. Toner doesn't spoil sat there doing nothing for long periods of time, whereas the ink for inkjets can do. The next question then becomes: mono or colour? Brand? The situation current is this, that only HP released their printer drivers as Open Source (at least 99% of them). The direction of travel for printing is entirely driverless, so this is less important than it used to be. And indeed, driverless printing is a lot less of a headache to administrate, IMHO, than drivered - even with open source drivers. If I were looking for a new laser printer today I'd look at Lexmark (on a recommendation from a friend), the firmware for which is apparently based on Yocto Linux. -- Please do not CC me for listmail. Jonathan Dowland ✎j...@debian.org https://jmtd.net
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
Charles Curley wrote: > I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend > to go bad before they empty, Rarely printing? I would suggest a laser, even if the price for printouts is higher. Brand? The situation current is this, that only HP released their printer drivers as Open Source (at least 99% of them). This means that you will get forever support for these printers with OpenSource - at least in theory. :-) Think: Even after the CUPS has been replaced in Debian or CUPS is changing it's internal data/communication/API, the source can be adapted by someone, who can program, even if HP won't. Also a printer, which is capable of PostScript oder PDF, should be an invest in future. As PostScript (PS) is still the most supported printer language at the moment - PDF is/was only a derived language from PS. On the other side: I own two lasers from HP because of the OpenSource situation. I'm not so happy with my MFP device (CM415 - comparable with MFP 227), as the scanner (!) part is cheap and shows this after some time: a limited number of pages can be scanned by the sheet-fed and then its no longer working (typical: 1000 pages), the scans are a way too light by b/w only pages. Real PostScript laser printers by Kyocera are not cheap, even I had a very good experience with them under Linux in a former company. Conclusion: It's not easy to recommend a good printer model. I would never recommend to buy a printer, where you don't get OpenSource drivers. I'm not speaking of Linux drivers, I speak of Open >Source< drivers. Best regards, Klaus. -- Klaus Singvogel GnuPG-Key-ID: 1024R/5068792D 1994-06-27
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 2021-09-17 23:41, Charles Curley wrote: I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the large ones. I suspect I could buy a printer for what four large cartridges would cost me. Requirements: * I print rarely, and I do use color. The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Inkjet or laser? Or other? * Buster and Bullseye should both support any recommendations. I don't use Windows. I've had good results with HP over the years, and they support Linux well. Reccomendations? I use elderly HP LaserJet with a PC doing Cups server which is easy enough once you find out the name of the print queue. Did have a Xerox Phaser for colour which worked very well until it had an accident to do with gravity. mick -- Key ID4BFEBB31
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
Dan Ritter wrote: > If you print in black/white more often than you need color, you could > still use a local print shop or get things mailed to you for those > occasions - photos and posters, especially, but basically any document. > > In that case, get a monochrome laser printer. I recommend a > Brother with all of the following features: I have always used HP laser and now I have 402dn (double side + network). It cost around 200,- and works great (2y since I have it) Before this I used HP laser 5L which I used over 15y. I also go to the local copy shop for printing in color (once every 3-4y). -- FCD6 3719 0FFB F1BF 38EA 4727 5348 5F1F DCFE BCB0
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
Personally, I wouldn't accept an inkjet as a gift. You use them like crazy, and you go through absurdly overpriced cartridges like crazy. You *don't* use them like crazy, and those absurdly overpriced cartridges clog, and you still go through them like crazy. And the pages come out soggy, and are even more vulnerable to water damage than what I write with my fountain pens. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing they're good for is edible printing, and for what little of that I do (typically one page every few months), it's far cheaper to email an image to the local cake supply, and have them do it. (The first rule of edible printing is you don't run anything but edible ink in that printer. The second rule of edible printing is you *DO NOT* run anything but edible ink in that printer. And you still don't talk about Fight Club.) I have had three monochrome laser printers (an HP 4ML, followed by an HP 2100M, which I then replaced with a rebuilt 2100M, which I still have. And I've had two color laser printers, a Samsung CLP-315, bought new and used until it wore out, followed by a rebuilt Samsung CLP-415, which I still have. And I have an ALPS MicroDry, that I bought used, after they'd been discontinued. Before the Samsungs, bought a Xerox color laser. It went back to Staples the day after it arrived: It was a lot bulkier in real life than it was in the pictures, it made the devil's own noise when it was running, and it claimed to be a PostScript machine, but curled up its toes and said "helll meee" if I actually fed it a PostScript data stream. That's not to say that the Samsungs will do anything if fed PostScript, but at least they were relatively inexpensive, as well as being almost as compact and quiet as my 2100M. What I've seen of HP lasers more recent than the 2000-series has not impressed me. That's a major reason why I went with a rebuilt 2100M, instead of something more recent. That and the fact that being able to accept and RIP a PostScript data stream, fed through a Centronics port, is a non-negotiable requirement for me: it's either that, or I have to dump the data stream to a file, distill it into a PDF, and print that. -- James H. H. Lampert Professional Dilettante
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
On 18/09/2021 7:05 am, Dan Ritter wrote: Charles Curley wrote: Requirements: * I print rarely, and I do use color. The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Inkjet or laser? Or other? * Buster and Bullseye should both support any recommendations. I don't use Windows. I've had good results with HP over the years, and they support Linux well. Reccomendations? I have standard recommendations. In your case, I would ask: do you need a printer? If it's convenient for you to go to a local print shop, it will be cheaper to use their high quality printers. It looks like there are five places like that in town. (I looked at your web page.) If you print in black/white more often than you need color, you could still use a local print shop or get things mailed to you for those occasions - photos and posters, especially, but basically any document. In that case, get a monochrome laser printer. I recommend a Brother with all of the following features: - BRScript/3 (their PostScript emulator) - ethernet jack - duplex Prices start at about $100. Other people can direct you to reliable color laser printers. -dsr- I agree totally on using laser over inkjet. The cost per page and print speed are far superior for laser. Worse is inkjet life. They inevitably clog or jam after only a few hundred pages. I do find that labels and envelopes usually don't fare well in cheap lasers. That is the advantage inkjets have. I worked around this by buying a cheap thermal label printer on aliexpress and wrote a linux driver for it. My cost per small label is 0.5c and large 2c. My toner cost per laser page is around 0.5c so maybe 1c per page for life of printer (fuji-xerox)
Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
Charles Curley wrote: > Requirements: > > * I print rarely, and I do use color. The carts on the L7700 tend to > go bad before they empty, Inkjet or laser? Or other? > > * Buster and Bullseye should both support any recommendations. I don't > use Windows. > > I've had good results with HP over the years, and they support Linux > well. > > Reccomendations? I have standard recommendations. In your case, I would ask: do you need a printer? If it's convenient for you to go to a local print shop, it will be cheaper to use their high quality printers. It looks like there are five places like that in town. (I looked at your web page.) If you print in black/white more often than you need color, you could still use a local print shop or get things mailed to you for those occasions - photos and posters, especially, but basically any document. In that case, get a monochrome laser printer. I recommend a Brother with all of the following features: - BRScript/3 (their PostScript emulator) - ethernet jack - duplex Prices start at about $100. Other people can direct you to reliable color laser printers. -dsr-
Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the large ones. First question: I print rarely. Inkjet or laser? Or other? The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement
I have an HP Officejet Pro L7700, which is starting to show its age. Also HP has discontinued the standard size cartridges. I can get the large ones. I suspect I could buy a printer for what four large cartridges would cost me. Requirements: * I print rarely, and I do use color. The carts on the L7700 tend to go bad before they empty, Inkjet or laser? Or other? * Buster and Bullseye should both support any recommendations. I don't use Windows. I've had good results with HP over the years, and they support Linux well. Reccomendations? -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
