[plug] buying a new printer

[Pete Blackhouse]

On Monday 21 June 2004 14:38, Ari Finander wrote:
> Canon do not make drivers available for linux. There is a company in
> Germany that makes Canon drivers for linux, but they are NOT free. My
> experience with these drivers is that they print okay, if you like
> everything printed at slightly the wrong angle. Check out linuxprting.org
> and buy from a company that supports linux. Canon doesn't, and I found this
> out the hard way.

That used to be the case, but not so much anymore.

I recently reached the end of my tether with my Epson - it wastes so much ink 
it was costing me a fortune. I went to PLE and bought the cheapest printer in 
the shop - a Canon i250 - which cost about the same as two Epson ink 
cartridges.

I downloaded the Linux drivers from here:

http://www.canon.co.nz/products/printers/colour_bj_printers/i250_drivers.html

and installed them. They come as RHL RPMs, but they slotted into my SUSE-9.1 
system without any trouble. Restart CUPS, set up the printer with YaST and it 
just worked(TM). That was as close to out-of-the-box Linux printing as you'll 
get! You also get a GTK utility which allows you to select paper type, clean 
the heads, etc., and a monitor utility, just like under Windows. 

Canon might have been slow to the Linux party, but they deserve credit where 
it's due. Anyone who wants a cheap (but surprisingly good) colour inkjet 
should definitely look at the Canon i250.