Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 12:54:00 -0700 From: Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com> To: Bill Maniatty <maniattb@cs.rpi.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD printing hardware Message-ID: <37B9BDD8.F86A2B29@3-cities.com> References: <199908171920.PAA58400@cs.rpi.edu>
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Bill Maniatty wrote: > > I am shopping for a system, and want to make sure that I get a printer > configuration which works fairly well with FreeBSD and hopefully ghostscript. > I was thinking of getting 2 printers (one color inkjet and one monochrome > laser jet). My questions become: > > 1) I would like to get high resolution color output on the inkjet, > do people have specific printer recommendations (I was > considering an Epson Stylus 850). Are there any > good inkjets with native postscript support (I'd > be willing to pay a bit more for it I guess). The Epson was postscript by drivers and the drivers at one point were only for WIndows or a MAC. I looked up what printers supported postscript and, at that time, there was a Xerox, a Lexmark OPTRA, and an HP2500CM. The Xerox was the only one supporting PS 3. Some of them come with 10/100 NIC's built in and I like that flexibility. I have two injets and an old Brother HL8e laser that is on a printserver. Less trouble interacting with both Windows and FreeBSD. I haven't been printing color from FreeBSD and those printers are on parallel ports. All of my Adobe stuff is Windows based and running on NT right now. None of them have PS. I could add it to my HP 1600C but that would be throwing $500 US away in my book. > 2) Is there any recommendations regarding PCI cards providing an > extra parallel port that I should be aware of (one vendor > here is pushing SIIG cards)? I've use SIIG cards for the com ports. It wasn't a problem other than you have to use their cables. > 3) For the printer suggested in (1) how can I get the best > output quality if I must use a software driver > (e.g. ghostscript installation hints and options). I tried ghostscript and none of the interfaces did 1200dpi color. They also did a number of things poorly such as fills. Why emulate when you can use the real thing. > 4) For a monochrome laser, is an HP1100 or HP2100 (if I feel rich :-) > a good choice? The HP 4050 is a much better choice because it comes with PS 2 and for $300 you can add a duplexer if it becomes important. The HP 2100 would be my only other choice because for $100+ you can add postscript to it. The local Office Depot has a TN model for $999, which means networking and postscript, but you can buy a 4050 for $982 at buy.com and get a lot more printer. The 1100 looks like a personal printer and I don't trust them for duty cycle. Kent > > Regards: > > Bill Maniatty > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @ Home http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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