[svlug] good cheap Linux-compatible printer?

[Mark S Bilk]

On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 08:50:57PM -0700, Sami Juvonen wrote:
>On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 19:25 -0700, Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:
>> Avoid inkjets. Avoid Epson printers. And of course, avoid Epson inkjet
>
>That's a pretty sweeping statement. Could you cite some facts to support
>your argument?

I bought an H-P color inkjet about 7 years ago.  Initially it 
worked fine, but when I didn't use it for a while, it developed
problems.  Inkjets spurt the water-based ink by vaporizing a tiny 
bit of it with tiny little resistors.  The problem is, if the 
nozzle holes get clogged because you don't print every day and 
the ink in the nozzles dries out, the ink doesn't flow, and it 
doesn't cool the resistors when they're pulsed.  So the resistors 
burn out, and appear as open circuits.  The microcomputer in the 
printer senses that, and refuses to work, saying that you have a 
bad printhead.  Oops, you're suddenly out forty bucks, and there's
nothing you can do about it, because you can't reprogram the 
little SOB.  Plus the head is slowly leaking black and multicolored 
ink and making a real mess in there.

So about three years ago I bought a Samsung ML-1740 laser printer 
for $75 after rebate from Fry's.  I almost never need to print 
anything, so it sat in its carton until last month when I had 
to print tax forms.  It's supposed to be Linux compatible, but
its Linux setup program wouldn't even run.  SuSE 9.3 found it 
on the USB port when I plugged it in, but then the admin program
(yast) couldn't see it.  So I hunted down the old parallel cable 
that I'd soldered back together after my cat had chowed down on it, 
and that worked.  But yast said the printer definition file on the 
Samsung CD was not valid, and it didn't have a table entry for 
the ML-1740.  So I said it was a similar-numberd model (1710 or 
something) and it worked!  Probably if I went to the Samsung 
website I'd find updated software, but it works well enough now.

It prints from acrobat and from open office, so what else do I 
need?  And no matter how long a time between usages, it always 
works, because there's no liquid ink to dry out like in ink-jets.  
(Dot-matrix ribbon cartridges also used to dry out.)

Plus this company sells a toner refill kit for it for $5.35:

http://lasertekservices.zoovy.com/

I think I saw a color laser printer in the Fry's ad a couple 
months ago for $260 new.

  Mark