[ale] canon Pixma

[Michael Trausch]

On Wed, 2010-05-12 at 09:37 -0600, JK wrote:
> Wait, I'm confused:
> 
> Jim: "Lexmark sux"
> 
> Michael: "Lexmark rulez"
> 
> Can we get some closure?  I have no experience with Lexmark, but
> the views expressed here are so diametrically opposed that I'm
> truly perplexed.  Does Lexmark make standard-compliant printers?
> Or do they spend their days dumping poison in the OSS well?  Or
> have they figured out a way to do both?  If the latter, have they
> patented same? 

Lexmark has several internal entities and a relatively complex history.
The net result is that they are to be avoided for ink jets (for that
matter, _any_ ink jet is to be avoided, what you save in costs of
acquisition you only bleed in ink costs later) but they make *excellent*
laser printers.

My current printer is a Lexmark e250dn.  It's an automatically duplexing
printer with an Ethernet interface, and it does both PostScript and PCL
(versions 3 and 6 respectively).  It needs nothing special and it works
out of the box with the PPDs that come with CUPS.  Lexmark advertises
the printer to work with just about everything, and because it does PS
and PCL it will work with a lot of things that they don't advertise it
working with, because those are standard printer languages.

I can't remember who had told me this, but someone not that long ago
told me that they met a Lexmark laser printer rep, and they were told to
go away because Lexmark sucks and they were a Linux user.  The rep
apologized for the ink jet department's existence, or something along
those lines.  Not surprising.

I'm not saying that Lexmark sucks or rules.  I *am* saying that they
make most excellent laser printers, both color and mono (my father in
law has one of their duplexing color laser printers) and they work with
just about every operating system out of the box.  You can even print to
them directly from old DOS or UNIX applications that know no better than
to output PostScript or PCL directly.

	--- Mike

-- 
Even if their crude and anticompetitive business practices don't make
you think about using their software, their use of sweatshops and child
labor should:  boycott Microsoft like you would any other amoral child
abuser:  http://is.gd/btW8m

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20100512/b5481d9f/attachment.bin