[ILUG] Dell 928 All-in-one linux support

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:10:11 +0100
  | From: "Andres Jimenez" <gandresin at gmail.com>
  | 
  | I am moving back to Spain very soon and I was  planning to buy a
  | not-too-cheap printer/scanner.
  |[ ... ]
  | Could you guys recommend any other printer/scanner, with reasonable
  | priced cartridges if possible, that works well on Linux?

 I use an HP Photosmart C6180 All-In-One (printer, scanner,
 copier (all colo(u)r), and (never used this part) FAX).
 it does not need a host computer to do any of the functions
 (but without one some of the capabilities are a bit limited).
 eithernet, wifi, usb, and bluetooth (albeit you need an
 extra usb(?) unit for bluetooth).  single-sided, but I
 believe there is a duplex attachment available (I just
 flip the paper over by hand, which unfortunately is a
 slightly fiddly operation).  never had a problem with
 jams that wasn't my fault (ref. fiddly operation), but
 clearing a jam is usually(?) a Really Fiddly operation.

 everything (that I've tried) works out-of-the-box, as
 advertised, on Linux.  complete Linux support is available
 on, IIRC, sourceforge (in case yer distro is lacking HP's
 support).

 I now forget what the rated PPM is; the achieved PPM is
 sufficiently fast I don't care.  I was pricing cartridges
 the other day, and at the not-cheap retail store I was in
 (here in France), when purchased individually, it was c.14€
 for the colour ones (4?) and c.39€ for the much larger black
 (I also forget the rated page counts (sorry!) but it has not
 been an issue for me).  when bought pre-packaged, a full
 set of cartridges was c.50€.

 the catch is cost.  I dunno what the price is now, but it
 is probably in the (low-to-mid-)100's of €'s,  this model
 is near the top of this range (Photosmart? All-In-One?) of
 HP units; there are cheaper units.  AFAICR, this entire HP
 range is 100% supported/works on Linux.

 “support on Linux” does not(? did not?), however, mean
 much help from HP's e-mail support group.  if you have
 troubles with HP's open source stuff, yer on yer own.
 (HP say(? said?) this up-front, to their credit.)
 as it happened, I did have to return my original unit
 to HP under warranty (it stopped powering up for some
 reason), and got a replacement well within the promised
 timeframe (which was something like 10 days max; as I
 recall I had the replacement in my hands c.4 days later).

 which brings up a general point/caution (not specific
 to HP):  one thing to check (esp. if the printer's a
 bit costly) is whether the warranty will be valid when
 you return to Spain.  (I've no idea about HP's printers,
 but I ran into this issue when moving from Ireland to
 France:  my machine (not an HP) could be serviced under
 warranty only if I first returned it to Ireland! ;-\ )

 I switched to HP from Epson printers partly on the advice
 of a good and trustworthy friend, and also 'cuz I got fed
 up with Epson's issues with clean/clogged heads (plus a
 deliberate(!) built-in obsolescence “feature”!).
 the disadvantage is HP's print quality isn't quite as good
 as Epson's; but I'm a (La)TeXer and, as seems to be common
 in TeXland, notice and am annoyed by even very slight
 imperfections.  most people probably don't notice or care?

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
“How many surrealists does it take to    |  Brian Foster
 change a lightbulb?  Three.  One calms  |  somewhere in south of France
 the warthog, and two fill the bathtub   |     Stop E$$o (ExxonMobil)!
 with brightly-coloured machine tools.”  |       http://www.stopesso.com