Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:05:02 -0700 (MST) From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> To: BSD baby <bsd@hitmedia.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: any advice before I buy a printer for FreeBSD? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0211251649110.88599-100000@wonkity.com> In-Reply-To: <20021124194520.A24648@mail.hitmedia.com>
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On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, BSD baby wrote: > Any advice before I buy a printer for FreeBSD? > > I'm finally going to get a printer for my FreeBSD devbox this week. > > Are they all pretty much FreeBSD-compatible? > or is there some spec I need to look for? As others have mentioned, avoid host-based printers. > I assume parallel port is still the way to go > or is USB really ready on FreeBSD? Ethernet is usually better yet. > Main thing I want to do is print PDF files, in batches. > (Send a directory of 300 different PDF files to the printer at once.) > > Are there any command-line tools to do that? > or do you need an X11 Adobe Acrobat app? Ghostscript includes a pdf2ps utility, which I haven't tried but probably works fine. Which printer to buy depends on how fast you need to print and how much you're willing to spend. I've had good luck printing from FreeBSD with various HP models: HP4M+, 8000, 4000, 5000. All have PostScript or PS-compatible interpreters. Just for fun, I've also used Ghostscript as an input filter, rendering PostScript on the computer and sending the printers PCL bitmaps. Works fine, and may be faster depending on what you're printing; it was slower for my small, hand-written PostScript code. You might find a used HP4M pretty cheaply (check the local thrift stores), and the MIO Ethernet cards they take can be found for under $50. The other end of the spectrum would be a new 4200 at around $1100 plus another $300 for the EIO Ethernet it needs. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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