2004.06_Printing Decisions-Finding the Right Printer for Linux Users.pdf

COVER STORY

The Perfect Printer

Printing Decisions

Your choice of printer will be influ-

enced by the jobs you need to print.

Linux users partly base their choice

on the kind of support the operating

system provides for the printer

model. This article provides useful

information and a decision making

guide. BY TILL KAMPPETER

counters are jam-packed with

printers for various tasks. From

low-budget inkjets for less than 50 dol-

lars to high-end lasers, and large-format

plotters that can easily cost thousands,

the choice is seemingly infinite. Which

of these printers is a good choice for

Linux?

The first question you need to ask has

nothing to do with the operating system.

The most important criterion is what you

intend to print, and the printing volumes

you expect.

Laser printers are quick and

produce premium hard copy,

but they are not good at photo

printing. They are quite expen-

sive, especially if you need

color. On the other hand, the

maintenance costs, and the

price per hard copy is fairly low.

In contrast, inkjets are a lot

cheaper in terms of the initial

investment; many of them are

capable of producing photos in

a similar quality to laboratories.

Unfortunately, they are a lot

slower, and the cost per page of

printed output, is far higher,

especially if you use photo

paper. If you print a lot of text, and occa-

sionally need colored hard copy, you

might even consider purchasing two

printers: a monochrome laser, and a

color inkjet. This mitigates the impact of

the inkjet’s higher running costs.

The most difficult thing about buying

a printer is finding a model with Linux

support for its full range of features. This

will depend on two things. Firstly, the

page description language the printer

uses, and secondly, what kind of Linux

support the manufacturer, or a third

party – such as a free project – provides.

Postscript and PCL

One thing is clear right from the outset:

Linux will always provide full support

for Postscript devices. Of course, this

assumes that the manufacturer has not

hidden the commands for accessing the

printer’s features in a Windows driver

DLL, but in an ASCII PPD (Postscript

Printer Description) [1] file, as required

by the standard. This guarantees at least

the same level of functionality for Post-

script models as on Windows NT.

PCL support is not quite as advanced,

but you can at least guarantee that a

PCL-based printer will print

on Linux. It will also allow

you to control basic settings,

such as the resolution or

paper size. Special features,

such as tray selection, toner

saving mode, or font

smoothing may not be avail-

able in standard Linux

drivers.

Figure 1: Linuxprinting.org is the ideal place to go, if you are having diffi-

culty printing on Linux.

Postscript and PPDs

Manufacturers of Postscript

printers typically provide a

PPD with the the driver for

MS Windows and MacOS.

The PPD includes Postscript

June 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

Finding the right printer for Linux users

T he shelves of the electronic dis-

The Perfect Printer

COVER STORY

Top Secret Protocols

There are many printers that use

proprietary languages or proto-

cols that their manufacturers

keep top secret. Most of them are

low-budget devices, but some of

them are actually quite expen-

sive. If the manufacturers fail to

provide a driver, printers that

belong to this category are com-

pletely useless under Linux, until

an independent developer finds

time to examine the output from

the Windows driver and guess

the protocol. Even then, the out-

put quality often fails to reach the

standard achieved on Windows.

You can check the Foomatic database

at [3] to find out if a printer is supported

on Linux. The database has a list of all

known printers, and indicates how well

they perform on Linux. This article

includes a few recommendations for var-

ious printer types and price categories.

but proprietary license from Canon

Japan [7]. The page is in Japanese. Just

download the RPMs and install. Some

models have different names in Japan,

Europe and the USA. Not all models are

supported.

Figure 2: The HP Deskjet 450 is a good choice for mobile

users. Linux support, good printing quality, six-color photo

printing, and no mains power required.

Lexmark & Canon

Lexmark introduced the first proprietary

drivers for some models quite a few

years back. It is difficult to get this gener-

ation of printers to work on modern

systems. Lexmark have now introduced

a new driver concept, which unfortu-

nately is also proprietary. The drivers are

supposed to work with most modern dis-

tributions [8], although we have not

been able to confirm this so far. Besides

poor driver support, Lexmark also loses

points due to its high prices for consum-

ables.

There are one or two free driver pro-

jects for Lexmark and Canon, but the

functionality they provide is restricted, as

the developers typically have no alterna-

tive but to reverse engineer propriet- ary

output. If you are interested, check the

driver database at Linuxprinting.org for

more recent information [9]. See Figure 1.

Drivers for printers by other manufac-

turers are unknown. What this all boils

down to, is that you should opt for

Epson and HP if you are looking for an

inkjet with Linux support. HP’s design

with the printhead integrated in the

expendable cartridge is preferable in

environments where nozzles tend to

clog. In contrast, Epson has permanent

piezo printheads; the cartridges are sim-

ply ink reservoirs. Epson also supplies

special inks for archiving purposes,

or PJL encoded commands for each of

the device’s special features, such as

duplex printing, tray selection, or even

stapling and punching. The code needs

to be embedded in the printer file to

allow access to the job options when

parsed by the interpreter. Before the

Common Unix Printing System (CUPS)

established itself as the standard for

Linux, PPD files were commonly

ignored. CUPS can handle a printer

description file natively, whereas other

spooling system use the Foomatic RIP fil-

ter to parse the information in the PPD.

This means that full support is available

for Postscript printers on Linux.

However, you should ensure that the

Postscript interpreter really is embedded

in the device’s hardware, rather than in a

Windows-based emulation tool!

Color Inkjets

Despite the large numbers of inkjet man-

ufacturers, there are only two whose

printers support Open Source software

really well: Epson and HP. Epson Stylus

printers in particular are a good choice

for Linux.

Epson released information about its

protocols to the Gimp Print [4] develop-

ers quite a while back. This allows Gimp

Print to support new Epson models as

soon as they are launched. Gimp Print is

free software and provides high quality

color output. The tool has a wide range

of settings that give the user lots of lee-

way, from a good compromise between

quality and speed, to photo realistic

color reproductions. This makes Epson

printers an interesting proposition for

amateur photographers with Linux.

Most non-Postscript printers by HP use

HP’s own free HPIJS [5] driver. This dri-

ver supports all the major features that

HP devices provide, such as duplex

printing, tray selection, and six-ink print-

ing. The photo and text output quality is

impressive, especially with newer mod-

els. However, the driver does lack

options for more granular control.

Printers by other manufacturers

should be avoided. You might be able to

support a Canon printer with a commer-

cial Turboprint [6] license, or with a free,

PCL and PJL

The printer-specific commands for PCL

printers are mainly implemented as PJL

commands (Printer Job Language). PJL

is a de-facto standard. It is not always

possible to get a printer to talk PJL.

Printers often strictly keep to PCL escape

sequences and commands. In this case,

you can only hope that the manufacturer

provides useful documentation, or that

an inquisitive developer has analyzed

the output from the Windows driver and

found out how to control the printer.

However, there are some models that

implement PCL support for reasons of

compatibility to DOS programs only,

using the Windows driver to do so. The

DOS program sends PCL to the driver

and the driver converts this code to a

proprietary bitmap. In this case, it does

not make any sense at all to send PCL

data to the printer on Linux.

Figure 3: The Epson C84 is a useful general pur-

pose inkjet. Gimp Print version 4.2.7 is required to

provide perfect support on Linux.

www.linux-magazine.com

June 2004

COVER STORY

The Perfect Printer

printer’s features with the

exception of borderless print-

ing. According to HP, work on

supporting this feature is in

progress.

The best mobile printer at

present is the HP Deskjet 450

(see Figure 2). It offers mobile

users the same hard copy qual-

ity as its bigger desktop

siblings, and even six-ink

photo printing on battery

power and all in an attractive

compact case.

Models in the HP Business

Inkjet range are recommended

for larger volume printing.

These models are quicker and have bet-

ter paper and ink capacities.

Most of HP’s newer inkjets allow you

to replace the black cartridge with a

photo cartridge that includes black, light

cyan, and light magenta. This allows for

perfect photo printing quality. There is

no need to modify the driver to support

six-ink mode. The printer handles color

management internally.

or the 950. The 925 has a card reader

that can be accessed as a USB mass stor-

age device (kernel 2.4.21 or newer), the

950 has six separate print cartridges.

Figure 4: Linux support is questionable for low-budget Epson

laser printers. The Epson EPL6200L only has partial support as

it uses a proprietary protocol.

Multifunctional Devices

These include devices that provide print-

ing, scanning, and other functions, such

as fax or card reading facilities in a single

case. Unfortunately, none of the current

crop of devices offers PC-based fax

support with free software. Printing,

scanning, and card reader access will

work on all Epson and HP devices, with

the exception of the Epson Stylus Photo

RX500, although work is in progress on a

Gimp Print driver. Devices by other man-

ufacturers will print in some cases, and

do nothing in others.

The HP devices need the low level dri-

ver, to access all their components. HPOJ

provides an interface that accepts print-

jobs, a Sane driver for the scanner, and

card reader access via MTools [11]. HPIJS

is used as the printer filter.

Epson’s devices act as if they were

separate printing, scanning, and card

reading devices. Gimp Print is used for

printing. The epson back-end for Sane

supports scanning [12], and card reader

access is handled via USB mass storage.

With the exception of the “LIDIL”

printers, the PSC 1xxx and the Officejet

4xxx, any HP models can be recom-

mended. The LIDIL multifunctional

devices are partially supported by HPOJ.

Avoid the Epson RX800, as Gimp Print

does not provide a driver for this model.

If you need A3 size printing, check out

the four-color Epson Stylus Color 1160,

1520, and 3000 models, or the six-color

grayscale inks, and continuous ink sys-

tems.

Users should be wary of low-budget

offers when purchasing a printer. Sup-

port is typically poor, or non-existent, for

printers in this price range, or the operat-

ing costs are extremely high due to

consumable pricing.

Low-Budget, but It Works!

The C42 and C44 are Epson’s entry level

models. Both have been supported since

Gimp Print 4.2.6. Ink cartridge prices are

at the top of the scale. The C64 is cheap,

but requires Gimp Print 4.2.7 or later.

HP’s entry level models are the Deskjet

33xx, 34xx, and 36xx. These devices use

LIDIL (Lightweight Imaging Device Inter-

face Language). As HPIJS does not fully

support LIDIL, these models cannot be

recommended. Low-budget PCL printers

with HPIJS support include the Deskjet

38xx series and the Deskjet 5150.

Photo Printers

HP’s Photosmart range is specifically

designed for printing hard copies of digi-

tal images. Almost all of these models

have a card reader that allow direct

printing without a PC. The 100 and 200

series are portable models that can han-

dle maximum paper sizes of 10x15 cm.

The 7000 series can handle A4, and the

7960 even offers eight-color printing

(black, mid and light gray, cyan,

magenta, yellow, light cyan, and light

magenta).

HP’s own multifunctional

device driver, HPOJ [10],

allows access to the card reader

on Linux. The latest models

(14x, 24x, 72xx, 76xx, 77xx,

79xx) actually handle the card

reader as a USB mass storage

device.

The Epson Stylus Photo

series supports photo printing.

The “classical” six-color print-

ers produce excellent hard

copy using Gimp Print. The

newer models R200, R300, and

R800 are not supported at pre-

sent. Thus, the recommended

models are the 830U, the 925,

Rock Solid Desktop Printers

Epson’s best all-round inkjet printers for

A4 standard paper are the Stylus C82

and C84 (see Figure 3). They have sepa-

rate cartridges for all four colors, and

provide premium text and photo quality

hard copy. These models use non-fading

pigment inks. The C84 needs Gimp Print

4.2.7 or later.

The Deskjet 5625 is our choice of HP

A4 inkjet printer. Thanks to its duplex

unit, it uses half as much paper, and if

you have the special photo cartridges,

you can use six-color mode for photo

printing. You can add a second tray to

expand the paper capacity to 400 sheets.

HPIJS allows you to use all of this

Figure 5: The Officejet 7130 by HP is a multifunctional device

with good Linux support. You can even use this model’s cut

sheet feeder.

June 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

The Perfect Printer

COVER STORY

Epson Stylus Photo 1290(S) and 2100. In

the HP corner, try the CP1700, and the

Deskjet 93xx printers for four color print-

ing. Photo cartridges are available for the

Deskjet 96xx series.

The Epson Stylus Pro can print DIN A3

oversizes. Gimp Print handles this with-

out any trouble. However, the developers

were unable to fine tune the color man-

agement and optimization for this series

due to a lack of test machines. The A1

Stylus Pro 7000 and 7500 printers have

been tested and provide a similar quality

to their smaller Stylus Photo siblings.

The Stylus Pro 9000 and 9500, are the A0

versions of the 7000, and should also

produce premium color hard copy. Gimp

Print even supports the current Stylus

Pro 7600 and 9600 models.

If you decide to opt for a product by

HP, or some other manufacturer, make

sure it is a top of the range model with a

hardware-based Postscript interpreter.

nately, most models use the standard

PCL and/or Postscript languages, so

many printers work perfectly well with-

out native driver support.

However, there are a large number of

printers – especially in the low-budget

section – that use proprietary protocols,

and do not provide driver support. Many

of them have a suffix, such as “L” for

“Light” at the end of their names, and

most of them have a bigger sibling that

speaks PCL or Postscript. Make sure you

choose the premium model, when buy-

ing a printer.

Many low-cost machines do not sup-

port free software. Once again, fortu-

nately, there are quite a few PCL and

Postscript printers, and there are even a

few drivers for proprietary protocols. In

general, you should look to purchasing a

PCL or Postscript printer. Remember that

many low-cost lasers lose this advantage

due to expensive consumables.

typically speak Postscript or at least PCL.

In addition, they have a permanent

drum, which has the pleasant side effect

of offering low printing costs per page.

Kyocera’s FS-1010 and FS-1020D models

both speak Postscript, the FS-1020D also

has a duplexer unit.

Lexmark laser printers are far friend-

lier to free software that their inkjets.

Almost all the models in the Optra range

either speak PCL or Postscript.

Lexmark has its own Postscript inter-

preter, and this allows even the

low-budget Optras to speak Postscript.

The Lexmark website indicates the Linux

compatibility of the models; driver

downloads are available. The entry-level

PCL5e models (HP LaserJet 4 compati-

ble), E220 and E321, are a good

low-budget choice.

Brother mainly has PCL and Postscript

lasers, and provides native Linux sup-

port with its own driver page [13]. Many

Brother printers that uses Brother’s pro-

prietary protocol work well, as the

Ghostscript hl7x0 filter helps produce

good results. Separate toner and drum

Monochrome Lasers

Most laser printer manufacturers do not

provide native support for Linux. Fortu-

Low-Cost Lasers

Kyocera laser printers, with the excep-

tion of the multifunctional devices,

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COVER STORY

The Perfect Printer

modules allow for low operating costs.

The entry-level models, HL 1430 and HL

5130, are both PCL5e printers.

Epson’s cheapest laser printers are the

models in the EPL “L” range (for example

the EPL 6200L), however, they use a pro-

prietary protocol. See Figure 4. Epson

does not supply a Linux driver, nor does it

provide any information on the protocol.

Although an independent project is work-

ing on developing a driver [14], this range

of printers cannot be recommended.

As the world’s largest laser printer

manufacturer, HP has a wide range of

PCL and Postscript printers. HP uses the

HPIJS driver to support PCL, and pro-

vides PPDs under the free MIT license

for Postscript – and even allows Linux-

printing.org to distribute them [15].

The cheapest laser printers that pro-

vide full support for free software are the

Postscript lasers LJ 1200 and 1300. The

LJ 1010, 1012, and 1015 models tend to

crash due to PCL compatibility issues.

The HP LaserJets 1000 and 1005 both

work with the foo2zjs driver [16], but

they do need a firmware upload on

restarting. Again, it is probably best to

avoid these models.

“L” at the end of the model identifier).

Both Brother and Lexmark offer driver

downloads.

Devices of this type normally have an

internal Postscript interpreter. They work

perfectly with free software. If you use

the PPD file, you can access the same

options as users with the Windows or

Mac operating systems.

Manufacturer-Specific

Pros & Cons

All of the printer manufacturers dis-

cussed in this article have their up and

downsides. Lexmark has quicker print-

ers, and better firmware, than HP at the

same price. HP toner cartridges and

drums are typically sold as a single unit,

and this can mean higher operating

costs. Kyocera’s permanent drum and,

Epson and Brother’s separate consum-

ables are more cost-efficient. On the

other hand, HP’s hardware has the repu-

tation of being more durable.

Many entry-level color lasers either

provide no free software support whatso-

ever, or are subject to restrictions. This

kind of printer is not recommended. The

HP Color LaserJet 1500 (work on devel-

oping a driver has started [18]), the HP

LaserJet 3500, and the Epson Aculaser

1000 are examples. The Minolta Magi-

color 2200 DL, and 2300 DL both use a

proprietary protocol, but they work quite

well with the foo2zjs driver.

Incidentally, ensure that PCL or Post-

script is implemented in the hardware,

rather than as an emulation. Models that

provide this are the Kyocera FS-8000C,

and the HP Color LaserJet 2500, 3700,

and 4600. Some manufacturers give

users access to freeware drivers, such as

the Epson Aculaser 1900, 2000, 4000,

8500, and 8600.

Communication via Internet

Protocols

There is a noticeable trend to multifunc-

tional devices in high-end model ranges.

Many high-end printers started off life as

digital copiers, with additional printing

and scanning modules. If the scanner

provides a Web interface, and outputs

image data as email, HTTP, or FTP, you

can scan with any operating system. If

not, the scanning facility provided by the

multifunctional device will not be avail-

able on Linux.

■

INFO

[1] Specification of PPD format: http://

partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/ps/index.jsp

[2] Foomatic Tutorial: http://tinyurl.com/3gf2g

[3] Foomatic database on Linuxprinting.org:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/database.

html

[4] Gimp Print project homepage:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

[5] HPIJ driver project:

http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/

[6] Turboprint, commercial driver for inkjet

printers:

http://www.turboprint.de/english.html

[7] Driver for Canon inkjet: http://cweb.

canon.jp/drv-upd/bj/bjlinux220.html

[8] New Lexmark drivers: http://support.

lexmark.com/en/ldk/index.htm

[9] Driver database: http://www.

linuxprinting.org/driver_list.cgi

[10] HP driver for chip card reader: http://hpoj.

sourceforge.net/

[11] MTools: http://www.tux.org/pub/tux/

knaff/mtools/index.html

[12] Sane scanner project:

http://www.sane-project.org/

[13] Brother drivers:

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/

[14] EPL driver development:

http://epsonepl.sourceforge.net/

[15] PPDs for HP lasers: http://www.

linuxprinting.org/download/PPD/HP/

[16] Foo2zjs: http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/

[17] PPD downloads: http://www.

linuxprinting.org/download/PPD/

[18] Project for HP color laser:

http://www.epkowa.co.jp/english/

linux_e/dl_laser.html

Mid-Range

Mid-range, so-called workgroup printers

have quicker engines, network ports,

and are extensible. All of these printers

support either PCL or Postscript, and

most of them support PJL. This more-or-

less rules out issues with free software.

HP, Kyocera, and OCE all provide PPD

files for their Postscript models as free

software under the MIT license [17].

Epson provides free drivers for its PCL

laser printers (the EPL series without an

High-End Printers

High-volume printing, larger depart-

ments in enterprises, or special tasks

such as punching, sta-

pling, or binding, are

typically the domain of

high-end laser printers

with speeds of 100

pages per minute or

more. The paper trays

typically have capaci-

ties of more than 2000

pages. Add-on devices

include finishers with

booklet making, or

creasing facilities,

mailbox and sorting,

and inline finishing of

printed pages.

Figure 6: For high volume printing: a Digimaster by Heidelberger. These

monsters have no objections to being controlled by Linux computers.

June 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

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