Re: a printer for Linux
Brian Nelson (nelson@bignachos.com) wrote:
> This is awfully misleading information. In general, there are two
> types of printers: lasers and inkjets. An inkjet printer is cheaper
> is generally cheaper and can't process postcript natively. However,
> their cost per page is usually very high--orders of magnitude higher
> than a laser. If you plan to print fairly often, there is no question
> you should get a laser.
>
> Most lasers, except for low end models, support postscript. This
> automatically means that it will be perfectly supported under Linux or
> any other virtually any other operating system with minimal effort.
> They also have much better output and speed compared to inkjets. And,
> they are generally much more rugged--inkjets, in my experience, break
> all the time.
It may have been misleading. I should have expanded on what I was
talking about. Sorry, my bad. However, before I bought my current
printer I wanted to buy a lazer printer that had color and
postscript and didn't print slower then 6PPM black/4PPM color. The
cheapest I found was $2,000 USD. That was WAY out of my budget (and
still is). Printers that support postscript seem to be 30 - 40% more
then similar featured printers that do not. ghostscript works pretty
well with some printers and I couldn't justify paying 30 - 40% more
just to have hardware level postscript support. I'll agree that
ink-jet printers have a higher cost per page, that is why I buy refill
kits. Besides the fact that the refill kit ink is higher quality then
what you get from the manufacturer.
> Probably the only significant advantage of an inkjet is color
> printing. Most inkjets will do a decent job at printing in color at
> far lower (initial) costs than a color laser.
Yes, and when I was buying I wanted color. My ink-jet printer does
12PPM black/10PPM color and supports 1440 x 720 DPI. There are not a
lot of lazer printers that can do that, add in postscript and you are
looking at an expensive printer...
> You will most likely have the best linux experience with a postscript
> laser. Unless, of course, you're on a very tight budget, don't plan
> to print a lot, and need color printing.
Yes, with postscript support in the printer (hardware) live is
easy. Just plug it in and no messing around with filters, but then you
pay for what you get. lazer == high quality hardware, but very
expensive. ink-jet == low qualtiy hardware, but very cheap.
> If you do choose an inkjet, be wary of driver support. Most inkjets
> have pretty lousy support in linux.
That goes for any non-postscript printer, regardless of the printing
mechanism (lazer, sub-dye, ink-jet, dot-matrix, etc.)
JMO,
Ron
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