[ale] I HATE printers!

[tom]

I'm not quite sure whether this is mostly a need to vent frustration, or 
to report challenges and seek remedies. I am reaching the point where I 
could resort to violence...

My big need for a printer at the moment is to print rough drafts and copy 
ready drafts for a class I'm teaching. Its a whole lot more better to show 
up on campus ready for copying than fighting the whole Linux/Windows 
software horse droppings. I'm having a major challenge doing so.

I was using a HP D1430 on a Netgear (model ?) printer server on the 
network. I started having difficulties with the black ink cartredges back 
in December. They would start printing black, and start fading after about 
a half page or so. I think I had 6 or 7 cartridges do me that way, from 
the first print job forward. That is expensive...

I obtained an Epson Workforce 30 last week, getting fed up with HP. There 
was an option to get a Brother Laser, but something about the store not 
keeping toner on hand and the toner being more expensive than the printer 
just rubs me grossly wrong. That approach may be brilliant marketing, but 
it is simply wrong use of resources.

Back to Epson

I'm printing from OpenOffice.org through CUPS to the Netgear blob hence to 
the Epson, using F10 Linux as the base system, all up to date as of last 
night. Test pages work print just fine, and I've gotten one or two decent 
print jobs. One or two decent print jobs out of 15 or so attempts isn't a 
good sign however. I can either get pure garbage characters with random 
page feeds, or be missing the bottom half of the page. Nice black stuff on 
the paper tho - not that fading pinkish stuff from the HP.

At this point I'm just frustrated, and moderately pissed off. This 
shouldn't be rocket science...

Thanks for the use of your bandwidth. I've got to drag somebody off to 
dinner now.