[mdlug] HP printer working well

[Jeff Hanson]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Raymond McLaughlin
<driveray at ameritech.net> wrote:
> Jeff Hanson wrote:
>
>> Lexmark's support for Linux is minimal but even if they were as good
>> as HP I wouldn't buy one.  Their paper handling is horrible.  Brother
>> and Samsung have good support.  My Brother MFC-440CN doesn't have
>> facsimile support under Linux but I don't need it.
>
> Are you talking about support for sending faxs from applications, i.e.
> the fax device appears as a printer? Or are you saying that computer
> support is needed to use it as a fax machine at all? I'm asking because
> I have seen printer/scanner/copier/fax devices made so cheaply that they
> had *no* stand alone functionality at all. They had to be connected to a
> running computer to do anything. I would avoid those like the plague!

IIRC it doesn't require a PC for fax.  But there is no Linux support
for accessing the fax device.

The HPLIP fax utility is included with Ubuntu.

>> The Samsung laser
>> printers I bought last year work well.  On Ubuntu I keep wasting time
>> finding and installing drivers for new hardware only to find out they
>> were already in the repo and all I had to do was plug it in.
>
> Are you saying they were already in the repository and they would
> automatically install when you plugged it in, or do you mean they were
> already included in the distribution?

Basic support was in the repo and automatically installed:
http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Samsung-CLP-300

Samsung's closed driver is available from their web site and includes utils.

The HP C5180 I bought has a built-in web server that can run the scanner.

I don't use printers much so I can't remember all the details.  I also
have a pile of pre-owned models to test out but am to busy now.