Hardware that Just Works

[Posted January 10, 2007 by corbet]

For whatever reason, there has recently been increase in the number of corporate LWN subscribers who want to receive information by fax. Your editor, having long seen facsimile as a sort of quaint technology for people who don't have email access, has never kept a fax machine around; there just hasn't been much call for it. Recently, however, wandering over to the local mailbox outlet to send faxes has become somewhat tiresome - and time consuming. The printer was showing signs of old age as well, so it seemed it was time to get a new toy in the form of one of those all-in-one devices which can print, scan, copy, and, yes, send faxes.

A long stint as a system administrator was enough to teach your editor that the management of printers ranks high on the list of Truly Obnoxious Tasks. For whatever reason, making printers work properly has always been painful, whether one is connecting a dot-matrix line printer to a VAX or a contemporary inkjet to a Linux system. So your editor approached the task with some trepidation, and with a fair amount of advance research. To this end, the linuxprinting.org site, which was merged into the Free Standards Group last year, remains an invaluable resource.

Your editor ended up with an HP OfficeJet device which performs all of the required functions. It may yet be convinced to wash the dishes as well, though it seems that feature is not yet well supported under Linux. Everything else is, however. Printing Just Works. Scanning with xsane Just Works. Overall, it is a very nice device, and making it work with Linux was just about painless.

A great deal of credit is due to HP, which has made free drivers available for its hardware. Thanks to this openness on HP's part, its hardware is fully supported on Linux systems and can be used to its full potential. That policy just resulted in another sale for HP, and, probably, many others. It behooves us to be sure that HP hears that feedback from its Linux customers. If manufacturers understand that supporting Linux means more sales, they will support Linux.

Credit is also due to the HPLIP project, which has packaged HP's drivers with a significant amount of support code. HPLIP integrates well with CUPS, which has done a great deal to civilize printing on free systems. Finally, the distributors have done a lot of work to make the setup of new printers easy. All of this work has transformed an administrator's job; when your editor thinks back to writing lpd output filters for a new device, he feels an immediate need for a strong drink. Now it has become necessary to find a new excuse for drinking. Congratulations to all of those who have managed to bring about such an improvement over a few short years.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 10:04 UTC (Thu) by mmarkov (guest, #4978) [Link] (2 responses)

HP Officejet does not a laser printer but an inkjet, right? In the past, the quality of ink printers used to be noticeably lower than that of laser printers. I dunno about the current models though.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 20:32 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] (1 responses)

Correct, the OfficeJets are inkjet based, the laser printers have the word laser in them (ie LaserJet).

As far as quality goes -- I have an OfficeJet 6110 all-in-one (and my wife has another) as well as an older HP 2100TN LaserJet. Print quality is comparable, although with a magnifying glass (or younger eyes) or printing very fine linework you might see a difference (in favor of the laser). The laser is of course faster (once it gets started), cheaper per-page, holds more paper, and has built-in networking -- but it also cost several hundred dollars more than the inkjets, and doesn't do color (or copy, scan, fax, etc).

You can get laser-based all-in-ones now, I believe, but again there's a price premium. Depends how much printing you plan on doing, though; for high volumes the lower per-page cost of laser toner will make up for the higher initial price.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 16, 2007 21:02 UTC (Tue) by davdunc (subscriber, #12473) [Link]

Thanks for posting the model number. That sure does help those of us considering a purchase.

What has faxing to do with printing?

Posted Jan 11, 2007 10:10 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (3 responses)

I don't understand associating faxing with printing on paper. Sure, as in printing, you have to produce pixels to send over a wire to some gadget, but where's the paper? Just about any modem knows how to dial and shriek at somebody else's fax machine, given some pixels. If you have a network connection, any number of services will take your pixels (or even raw text or html) and do the dialing and shrieking on your behalf.

What has faxing to do with printing?

Posted Jan 11, 2007 10:52 UTC (Thu) by stevan (guest, #4342) [Link] (1 responses)

Indeed, yes. Corporately we have used an inbound hylafax system for the
last 7 years with no issues at all, simply directing the output to a
choice of existing laser printers, although the inbound fax can also end
up as an e-mail attachment or simply dropped into a data area.

Outbound is as straight forward, though no-one uses it these days.

I suspect our editor could have saved a penny or two by using an old modem
he's sure to have lying around. He may re-examine this when he realises
the cost of the ink cartridges... ;-)

Somehow all-in-one devices aren't unixy, are they?

What has faxing to do with printing?

Posted Jan 11, 2007 15:25 UTC (Thu) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Somehow all-in-one devices aren't unixy, are they?

Well, as long as it works with emacs, it must be.

What has faxing to do with printing?

Posted Jan 11, 2007 11:08 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

A lot of these things started as photocopiers implemented as a scanner and a laser printer, then grew the ability to run the parts independently and do other things with them too. (After all, a fax machine needs a scanner...)

If you have a computer connected, all you *really* need is the separate scan and print components, and the machine can connect them together: but not everyone has appropriate software to do that (or the skills to write it) so it's good that the hardware device can do it on its own as well.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 11:35 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (4 responses)

Samsung has improved a *LOT* recently too. To the point where I wandered into a electronic-shop in germany, looking for a cheap laserprinter that works with Linux.

I was shocked to discover that, not only do the Samsung-printers come with "Works with Linux" and tux on the box, but they are even clueful enough to include .deb .rpm and .tgz drivers on the included "driver-cd", along with instructions on where to find updated drivers, and a list of which distributions will autodetect and Just Work with the printer.

Would've been unthinkable 5 years ago.

Plugged the thing in. Turned on the power. Waited 2 seconds. Ubuntu popped open a dialogue saying it had detected a new printer, and do I want to configure it ? I said yes, whereafter I had to confirm that A4 is my standard paper-format and yes, I do want this printer to be the "standard printer".

Connect. Click the mouse literally 3 times.

My grandmother could do that. We've come a long way.

Samsung Warning

Posted Jan 11, 2007 19:04 UTC (Thu) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link] (1 responses)

from my experience do not install the Samsung software from the CD.

Samsung Warning

Posted Jan 15, 2007 17:41 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Indeed. It's closed-source and rather more than slightly broken (at least the software for the ML-2250 is). Using the pclmono means I lose the ability to produce 1200dpi output, but 600dpi is more than enough for me right now anyway.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 12, 2007 1:57 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

That's good, but if all it does is come with binary drivers that happen to work on some particular Linux systems, then it's really only scratching the surface of supporting Linux.

Supporting Linux means open source drivers and/or protocol documentation are available.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 15, 2007 13:23 UTC (Mon) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

I don't think you read that properly. If Ubuntu just worked out of the
box (as well as some other distributions, apparently), the drivers are
not only free software but also included in the popular distributions.
That's good.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 12:15 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link] (2 responses)

I would say that Linux in some ways are actually ahead! On Windows, I've seen driver installations that literally added several hundred MB worth of crap. All I want is a driver, but nooo - we really think all these extra applications are something you can't live without.

That's not only for printers though. My sister got a HP digicam and the driver required more than 400MB of disk space! On Linux I plug it in, choose it from the list of supported cameras in Digikam (uses gPhoto2) and download the images. It can't be much more simple than that.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 16:44 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

Agreed! I laugh when I buy a device and open the manual to find screenshots of some weird windows app that supposedly helps you use your device. I then keeping flipping to the back where it finally gives you some details about the actual hardware (port #s, com settings...) so that I can use it with linux.

I am glad not to have to install a bunch a crap that will just litter my start menu with READMES, uninstalls and other weird stuff. I'm glad that my debian K menu isn't so easily disturbed and stays well organized (mostly by the kind folks at debian) with things that are actually applications and that I might actually use! No new useless shortcuts on my desktop, no new marketing icons in my tray... My pc is actually mine, what a concept!

I can tell you that while my wife may not appreciate the technical benefits of linux, but she does appreciate that we are in control of our hardware. I would say that means that she is a greater fan of RMS than ESR despite having never heard of either. :) Don't underestimate the power of freedom once experienced.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 18, 2007 7:59 UTC (Thu) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

My record is 785 MB of random software for the HP 6310 all-in-one device on Windows, which took me a long time to uninstall after I mistakenly installed it on one box.

A shame, as this is actually a very good device that is incredibly compact (fits on a reasonably sized shelf and doesn't require much vertical clearance), includes Ethernet connection and USB, does print/scan/copy/fax, and is supported according to Linuxprinting.org - not yet tried with Linux but I'm sure it will work. Print quality is generally good, but the copier feature is quite a bit slower than a 'real' copier of the analogue sort, and quality not quite as good, e.g. copying of thin lines is not great.

For those using Windows, HP does also have a much smaller 'corporate driver package' that does what it says without the extra cruft.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 13:42 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

My thanx and money for HP too - i was going to buy a Canon printer, but
due to it's bad Linux support, i bought a HP Deskjet. and it worked great
and easy - so i'll be recommending HP to everybody...

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 11, 2007 14:36 UTC (Thu) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link] (5 responses)

I am glad that you are happy with LWN's new hardware. Please share your joy more effectively by conducting and presenting a thorough review.

Which model are you using? Which interfaces are present, and which did you test (serial, infrared, parallel, SCSI, USB 1.1, USB 2.0, 10/100 ethernet, WiFi)? Can they be used simultaneously or one-at-a-time with auto switching? How well does the USB 2.0 interface work when driven by a USB 1.1 port? What is the USB current draw [grep MxPwr /proc/bus/usb/devices]? What is the external power draw (operating and sleep mode)?

Which functions are supported (pc to print, pc to fax, scan to pc, scan to fax, scan to print, fax to print, fax to pc)? Which are supported simultaneously? Which wakeups are supported (fax to pc, pc to fax, pc to print)? Does the device have internal memory to store images, and how does that work and interoperate?

Is there complete read+write interoperation of status and control settings between the pc and the physical device (knobs, buttons, dials, LEDs, displays, ink remaining, paper remaining)? Which Desktop(s) did you use on Linux? Describe the integration with CUPS, drag-and-drop, shell command line.

Describe the POTS integration. Is there a handset? Dialpad? Speaker? DTMF dialing via sound through the microphone? Seamless interoperation with a telephone answering machine (auto switching among voice/fax/pc)? Voice handoff to fax without redialing? Wait for dialtone? Describe the interference (audio and logical) if the pc requests an outgoing fax while a voice call is already in progress.

Which PSTN standard was used? Local carrier? What is the peformance impact (both ways) on a line that also carries DSL? Does the device have an internal DSL filter? If the power fails, which settings persist on the device (clock, mode preferences, speed dial fax numbers, broadcast fax lists, ...)?

Do the device dimensions adequately describe the required physical environment for operations, or does stacking of output pages require more space? Which sides of the device require additional space for cords or hands during normal operation, and during maintenance?

Price. PCI card data/voice/fax full hardware modems retail for about $40 and are supported by several FOSS software packages. External full hardware modems with USB interface are available for about twice that price. Some less-than-full-hardware modems can be made to work for less. Why did you choose a more-expensive device?

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 11, 2007 15:05 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

The article wasn't really meant to be a hardware review piece - LWN doesn't do a whole lot of that.

As for why: we've had a fax-capable modem for years. It's the scanning side that was missing.

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 11, 2007 16:54 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (2 responses)

I respect your decision to avoid hardware reviews (LWN is excellent as it is), but I wish there were someone who would take on that task. "Which hardware should I buy that works effectively with Linux?" has always been a difficult question, and what databases there are on the net are mostly full of devices you can no longer buy.

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 12, 2007 1:21 UTC (Fri) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link] (1 responses)

The databases I found on the net also seem to silently assume that I'm willing to install non-free drivers and whatnot :(

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 12, 2007 16:05 UTC (Fri) by gtaylor6 (guest, #19812) [Link]

This may be true for some databases, but Linuxprinting.org most certainly does not do so. We have always* been a listing of DFSG-free drivers. It says so on the page describing our ranking criteria - a printer that comes with a gloriously functional binary driver but which does not work with free software is listed as a Paperweight, with a little "no penguins" icon just to make it clear.

People stuck with such printers do of course help each other out with the unsupportable drivers in the forums and wiki, but I'm certainly not going to do anything to promote the purchase of such a device for use with free software. If the drivers aren't free to include in a working state in the distribution, the device is almost a nonstarter from a usability perspective.

* With the one historical exception of a "probationary" period where we listed HP's HPLIP drivers back when they had a non- free "use this code only with HP printers" clause but I had been given informal assurance that a freer license was forthcoming. This worked out in an ends justifies the means sort of way, but I probably wouldn't do it again. (Not that it's up to me anymore, but I do hope Till and the FSG will continue this policy for however long the database survives).

Please give a thorough review

Posted Jan 11, 2007 17:55 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

You might want to edit the article to explain that you have pieces of paper with writing on them that you want to fax to people, because that isn't actually clear at present. The first thing that comes to mind for me is actually that you've got files that people want to receive by fax instead of email.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 15:34 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

I have an HP all-in-one OfficeJet, and I was amazed at how easy it was to install. I connected it through Ethernet, and discovered that you can connect to it as a web server. Through that interface you can find out about ink remaining, and also get scans without even installing SANE (the picture shows up directly in your browser). Easy!

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 16:34 UTC (Thu) by gtaylor6 (guest, #19812) [Link]

How refreshing to see an article about a non-horrible printer experience!

Speaking of linuxprinting.org, it's always in need of volunteers. Any good or bad experience you may have had with any printer can be recorded in the database to help the next guy.

The Database

The FSG move also involve the conversion of most of the prose into a regular Wiki, so there is plenty of room for help on that front. For example, the "Suggested Printers" page might really have helped reduce the amount of up-front research time you faced if it were at all up to date. I think it hasn't much changed in years. If anyone cares to contribute, this page in particular, and plenty of other information in general, can be updated via Wiki.

Suggested Printers

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 18:08 UTC (Thu) by dwelch91 (guest, #42709) [Link]

Just as a clarification from the article, "HP Drivers" and "HPLIP" are one and the same. HPLIP is an HP sponsored project (ie, staffed by HP engineers) that provides open source drivers for over 1,000 HP printer models.
We welcome any community/user feedback on our mailing lists at: http://hplip.sf.net (also available on gmane.org, just search for "hplip").

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 20:03 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] (2 responses)

This sounds great! I've postponed getting a multifunction device
because it's not very well documented anywhere whether all the
functionalities work under Linux and if the work, what was
distro version and exact device model in question...

> Your editor ended up with an HP OfficeJet device

Which model?

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 11, 2007 20:23 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

It's a 7410. From what I gather, though, pretty much all of the HP models are well supported.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 14, 2007 17:48 UTC (Sun) by dwelch91 (guest, #42709) [Link]

Refer to this list for supported products:

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/combined.html

Here's the list of non-supported products:

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/supported_devices/unsupporte...

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 12, 2007 2:37 UTC (Fri) by N0NB (guest, #3407) [Link]

This past November I went shopping for a new laser printer. I became
interested in the Brother line since I had seen a Brother printer in a
special application within the past year and it had worked well. Imagine
my pleasant surprise when their web pages proclaimed Linux support. Then
I found that Officemax was offering an instant rebate so I ordered one.

It arrived the next week and was unbelievably loud. Then I noticed a
white unprinted strip about a quarter inch wide toward the right side of
the page. I had an RMA on it within an hour of opening the box. The
Officemax agent put in an order for another only to discover the
particular model, HL-5240, was on backorder. Fortunately, the replacement
arrived by the end of the week!

This one has been perfect. 1200x1200 DPI, native Postscript support, 30
PPM, quick warmup to print after powerdown sleep (it sleeps as though
completely powered off), and crisp clear print. The key was to not to
bother with their poor attempt at a driver (even in .deb format) and dig
out the PPD file from their website. Since I told CUPS to load the
Brother PPD, it has worked like a champ with full margin control and
proper print alignment.

I couldn't be happier.

Network printing

Posted Jan 12, 2007 14:32 UTC (Fri) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link] (1 responses)

I find it funny/strange that people are still connecting printers to computers
over USB ports. Given that (a) all these printers have processors, and (b) an
ethernet port costs well under $1 (wifi is also getting cheap), I don't
understand why all printers don't just connect to the network. In any
case I recently got a Lexmark C522N (has ethernet & USB), and this
completely "just works" ... and I don't have to have my desktop switched
on all the time to use it either.

Rich.

Network printing

Posted Jan 12, 2007 23:40 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Because networked printers bring much higher margins than USB-connected ones and no manufacturer really wants this to change. It'll equalize, it'll just take a few more years.

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 15, 2007 13:33 UTC (Mon) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

I have always only used Postscript compatible hardware and I have never
had any trouble whatsoever printing using everything from proprietary
unix machines to old macintoshes.

The only reason consumer inkjet printers are so cheap is because they are
subsidized and you pay most of its cost when buying ink. You may save a
hundred dollars today but you can be sure you'll have to pay two hundred
tomorrow. That's not a good deal.

Fax-over-IP

Posted Jan 18, 2007 9:14 UTC (Thu) by phd (guest, #952) [Link]

Time for a "The Grumpy Editor's Guide to IP-telephony and T.38 [1]"?
[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.38

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 18, 2007 15:06 UTC (Thu) by zitran (guest, #5254) [Link]

Just purchased and installed a HP LaserJet 3050. It worked like a charm on FC6 once I remembered that I had turned off the USB-support in the BIOS. Printing and Xsane work great, faxing though has not yet been tested but I understand that it should work based on the info of HPLIP

Previously I found that the LaserJet 1100A works just as well.

IMHO if you can't use a Postscript printer use a HP and you have no problems. Many thanks for good drivers and support to the involved.

Scanning is an other issue. The only bad experience I have had has been with the old HP OfficeJet Pro 1150C, which prints but does not scan using Xsane. This is in contradiction with the info at HPLIP where it is stated that it is supported since version 0.9.5.
The distributions I've tried are FC4 through FC6.

rgds

Paul

Hardware that Just Works

Posted Jan 22, 2007 16:57 UTC (Mon) by Tr0n (guest, #42662) [Link]

I agree that HP have been good with Linux drivers.. I've used HP printers for years, and the quality of the hardware and drivers have always been high in my opinion.

CUPS is very good in the sense that little needs to be configured by the end user - most of the defaults "just work", although I had some problems with my HP printer last year - due to a corrupt CUPS install (which I couldn't find evidence of in the logs).. The web-gui seems very good too (squid?) very responsive and easy to use.