I need a new printer

[banjo]

Greetings,

 

My Epson C84 printer has died. The print head for the black cartridge quit working, and since the print heads in the Epson do not come with the printer cartridge, the printer is toast.

 

I will not buy another Epson for that reason and some others.

 

I find that I am now in need of an inkjet printer/scanner that will work with my Mandy 2006 system. It would be nice to have a printer/scanner so that I can hook a scanner up to my Linux computer since the only scanner I have is a beat-up old Umax Astra (POS) that will only run on my beat-up old Windows98 computer, but it is not essential.

 

I have tried looking up compatible printers on linux-usb.org and also on the Mandriva hardware compatibility database with no joy. It seems that every time I go to the computer store all of the printer models have changed again, and what was there last week is no longer available.

 

Does anybody here have any information that will allow me to find a printer model or printer family that will work with my Linux? What kinds of printers do you guys use?

 

I am running Mandy 2006 using CUPS and KDE. My Lexmark laser works fine, and the Epson was working OK before the print head died. I would hate to buy a printer just to find out that it will not work on my Linux.

 

Thanks in advance

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[AussieJohn]

I have recently purchased an Epson Photo R390. It works brilliantly.

Needed to get the driver from Epsons special website and got it working brilliantly.

 

I have just installed Mandriva-2008-beta2 on a 2nd hard drive and the printer was setup automatically so the driver is now in 2008 and now no need to chase a driver.

The R390 has separate ink tanks for each colour. You can also print covers onto DVDs and CDs as well. Has a 3" lcd screen and front usb port plus photo flash card slots.

 

I highly recommend it. It is a beautiful unit.

 

I had an Epson Photo EX and it lasted 5 yrs so I have the opposite view to yours about Epson.

If you used Non-Epson Inks then I would not be surprised you had a failure.

I did that in the first year of the EX but had the sense to pull out the non Epson tank and reinserted the original Epson empty tank so it was fixed under warranty. Epson tell you that if you use non Epson ink then you do so at your own risk and negate your warranty.

Did you by any chance do that ?. If you did then you assumed the risk so don't blame Epson for that.

 

Cheers. John.

[banjo]

John,

 

I actually had two C84's... one for my son down in college and one here at home. Both of them failed in the same way (the black head failed) within weeks of each other. I did not get three years out of either printer.

 

We never put anything into the printers but Epson ink straight from the retail store. I never refilled a cartridge or used any third-party parts or inks. I have a bag full of new Epson cartridges sitting on the floor under the dead printer right now. The printer did not live long enough to put them in.

 

The most annoying thing about the printer was that the heads would dry up and stop working if I left it sitting without printing anything for more than two or three days. At that point, I had to clean the heads to get it working again. Cleaning the heads cost me 3% of my ink every time I did it, and I had to clean the heads every time I printed anything. I even started turning the printer on every day and printing a "test" sheet that would exercize all of the ink jets since doing that was costing me less ink than cleaning the heads. That only worked for a while, and then that scheme failed as well and I had to go back to cleaning the heads. Eventually, the black head just failed and the printer is toast.

 

I think I must have spent 95% of the ink and the paper that went through the thing just to keep it going.

 

If you are having good luck with them, then stick with them, but I am giving up. Maybe they use a different technology down in Oz. I don't know.

 

Thanks for the input anyway.

Linux rocks!

Brian

(_)=='=~

[Mitchell]

I'm using an Epson R210 Photo printer with Mandriva 2007.1, and it works fine. Have had the printer under heavy use off and on for over a year now, and has been great. Prints beautifully, and also prints onto cd's. am ab le to print of photo-quality pictures on it, we don't take pictures to get printed anymore, we do it ourselves from our digital camera. Have had problems recently with the ink blotching for the first few prints after I refill the cartridges, which may or may not be due to refilling refillable ink cartridges. I'm planning on taking it into a local shop for a service soon. I recommend them.

[banjo]

I think maybe the problem with mine might be that it got only light use. I just don't print in color very much. During the time that the printer was working, the output was fine. I got some very high quality photos out of it. I have read other comments about the Epson printers not working well if they are left sitting unused for any length of time.

 

It also could be that the C84 was just a dog too. Both of our printers were the same model and they failed the same way after the same length of time.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[scoonma]

Does anybody here have any information that will allow me to find a printer model or printer family that will work with my Linux? What kinds of printers do you guys use?

 

Don't know about the color printers, but my B/W Kyocera laser (FS-920) worked fast and fine from the beginning. No probs until now. Plugged it in, installed .ppd file and ready to run (with CUPS). That's the way it has to be. ;-)

[dude67]

I've been very happy with HP 2350 All-in-one printer, copier & scanner. It opereates well with my MDV 2007.1.

 

Here's a bit more about that from HP's site:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF...ng=en&cc=us

 

I used to have a Canon all-in-one hw, but Canon does not have any support for Linux (at least they didn't) so I decided not to use Canon copiers any more.

[SoulSe]

Everything you could possibly need to know, and a list of what to buy, over here.

[AussieJohn]

I just did a google (see this website :- http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews87582.html ).

 

Seems that model package was a lemon so you were dead unlucky. However it seems that it was an economy model packaged as a middle range and the particular ink seems to be the problem. It is supposed to make prints with a better than 80yr life and so yes the ink was dear. Looks like Epson really blew this one.

 

The inks in the Photo EX and my new R390 doesn't use that so-called archive ink. (Thank goodness - it seems)

 

 

Cheers. John

Edited September 3, 2007 by AussieJohn

[ianw1974]

I'm using the HP Deskjet F380. It's working fine in Linux. Not tried scanning though, but the rest of the functionality is perfectly fine.

[banjo]

Thanks for all the info. I guess I made a bad choice with the C84.

 

At least I now have some places to go to do some research.

 

My son now has an HP F380, but he has it down at college, so I can't try it here. :huh: And when I was in the store I did not see any. The printer models come and go in a few months.

 

I might have to pick one and order it online.

 

Thanks again for the great info.

Banjo

(_)=='=~