[H-GEN] printer recommendations

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2008-09-15 at 18:07 +1000, Nikolai Lusan wrote:
> Anything from HP is generally good, HP also have the best linux support
> around for printer, scanners and all-in-one units. Some of the Cannon
> printer support is getting there and all the Cannons I have had in the
> past where relatively easy to get going. Right now I am using a HP
> all-in-one colour inkjet which cost about $400 from Officeworks, it all
> works well with the hplip packages and minimal cups configuration.

As Nikolai said, HP supports Linux.  A long time ago their printer
hardware used to be something special.  Now the pack has caught up.
If I was to offer a piece of advice, it would be to estimate your
monthly paper usage, then figure out the total cost of the printer
(including consumables) over a 3 or 5 year lifetime.  Generally,
a printer twice the cost, with twice the features, will cost less
over its lifetime.  And generally, a Kyocera laser printer will be 
cheaper than the other laser printers over its lifetime.  Any
printer that handles Postscript or PCL will work well with Linux,
and most of Kyocera's do.

Inkjet printers can be even cheaper than lasers - if you refill
the cartridges yourself.  The easiest printer cartridge to refill
is Canon, and their inkjet hardware is general very nice.  I
prefer it to the other brands.  Unfortunately, Canon's Linux 
Inkjet support sucks. I have one.  I have packaged a couple of 
the Canon support drivers for Debian.  The code is ugly, it is 
buggy - going into infinite loops, and contains i386 only binary 
blobs.  You will not get a Canon Inkjet to work as well under
Linux as it does under Windows.

> > Also where is a good place to shop.

I used online search engines almost exclusively now.  There
are a few.  Staticice seems to be the best run, but it doesn't
hurt to try several.