Lexmark X1100 printer

[Gerry Freymann]

I had to replace my trusty old HP930C and went out and purchased a cheap
Lexmark X1185.

It works pretty good on the windoze boxes (networked printer) but I don't
seem to be able to get any drivers to work with it on FreeBSD 4.9R

I've got ghostscript and apsfilter installed. But when I select Lexmark in
apsfilter, and try to print, I get an error about installing the lm1100
filter. I can't find any documentation that talks about installing this
filter on FreeBSD.

So I'm wondering if going with CUPS would be easier? or at least something
else to dig into. I've spent about 3 hours fiddling with the current setup
to no avail.

Any Suggestions? links?

Thanks.
-gerry

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Gerry Freymann
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 6:27 PM
> To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> Subject: Lexmark X1100 printer
>
>
> I had to replace my trusty old HP930C and went out and
> purchased a cheap
> Lexmark X1185.
>

Wrong thing to do. HP is well supported under open source
operating systems, Lexmark isn't.

> It works pretty good on the windoze boxes (networked printer)
> but I don't
> seem to be able to get any drivers to work with it on FreeBSD 4.9R
>
> I've got ghostscript and apsfilter installed. But when I
> select Lexmark in
> apsfilter, and try to print, I get an error about installing the lm1100
> filter. I can't find any documentation that talks about installing this
> filter on FreeBSD.
>

[url]http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Lexmark-1100[/url]

> So I'm wondering if going with CUPS would be easier? or at
> least something
> else to dig into. I've spent about 3 hours fiddling with the
> current setup
> to no avail.
>

Also note that the lm1100 isn't the 1185. The model numbers on these
things are pretty meaningless - the entire printing command set of the
1185 could be completely different from the 1100.

> Any Suggestions? links?
>

Let me put it this way. It sounds like your not that experienced with
the ugliness of installing an unsupported printer under FreeBSD. I
guarentee
that you will be happier if you stay that way.

Return the printer to the store and buy one that is well supported.
By purchasing the Lexmark you are effectively rewarding companies that
don't lift a finger to help us, and punishing companies that are bending
over backwards to help the Open Source community.

If you had got the printer from a dumpster, or free from someone, I
would be more inclined to spend time answering your question. But the
fact that you actually went out and paid money for it - that is
different.
If you want to support FreeBSD, reward vendors who support it with your
business, not vendors who ignore it.

Ted

[Roland Smith]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 11:05:24PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

>
>

> > From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Gerry Freymann
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 6:27 PM
> > To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> > Subject: Lexmark X1100 printer
> >
> >
> > I had to replace my trusty old HP930C and went out and
> > purchased a cheap
> > Lexmark X1185.
> >

>
> Wrong thing to do. HP is well supported under open source
> operating systems, Lexmark isn't.

Indeed. Do yourself a favour, and do some research *before* you buy a
printer.

For the most part it depends on the "language" that the printer
speaks. As a rule, any printer that understands postscript will work
without much trouble. Printers that speak PCL (most, but not all HP
printers) or ESC2P (Epson) work well.

Avoid so-called winprinters like the plague. They offload most
processing to the host processor (your CPU) using a Windows-only binary
driver. Some of those drivers have been reverse-engineered, but I'd
advise you not to go there. Setting them up is always complicated.

Check on linxprinting.org to see if the printer you have in mind will be
able to work. The lexmark 1185 is not listed, which is not a good
sign. The lexmark 1100 (assuming the 1185 is related) is listed as
"partially working", which is also not encouraging.

Roland
--
R.F. Smith /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
r s m i t h @ x s 4 a l l . n l \ / No HTML/RTF in e-mail
[url]http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/[/url] X No Word docs in e-mail
public key: [url]http://www.keyserver.net[/url] / \ Respect for open standards

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[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Roland Smith
> Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 9:42 AM
> To: Gerry Freymann
> Cc: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> Subject: Re: Lexmark X1100 printer
>

>
> For the most part it depends on the "language" that the printer
> speaks. As a rule, any printer that understands postscript will work
> without much trouble. Printers that speak PCL (most, but not all HP
> printers) or ESC2P (Epson) work well.
>
> Avoid so-called winprinters like the plague. They offload most
> processing to the host processor (your CPU) using a Windows-only binary
> driver. Some of those drivers have been reverse-engineered, but I'd
> advise you not to go there. Setting them up is always complicated.
>

The problem is that the cheap color inkjets on the market are all
winprinters
these days. So you have to go there if you want to print color.

HP has written a UNIX driver for their winprinters, it's not a
reverse-engineered
job by someone with a packet analyzer. Epson has also obviously provided
aid and assistance to whomever wrote the driver for their printers as
well.
A few other printer companies seem to have done this also. But a lot of
the imaging companies out there, like lexmark, haven't, and many of the
reverse-engineered drivers for those printers only print in some of the
lowest resolutions.

I have an Epson C84 myself, georgeous color output. But it literally
takes
2 minutes for an AMD K6 200Mhz running FreeBSD to convert a page of
Postscript to
a page of Epson-speak. Fortunately I don't print color that often. My
wife
uses it more than I do, but she is printing via USB from a 1.4Ghz Windows
system
and her system only takes about 15 seconds to image a page. Most of my
printing is to my HP 4+ Postscript laster printer that duplexes.

I picked my Epson because it has individual ink resivours for each color.
So
unlike the HP your not stuck throwing out a perfectly good cartridge just
because ONE color ran out. I think actually HP is also moving that
direction
as well.

Ted

[Roland Smith]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 10:53:01PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> The problem is that the cheap color inkjets on the market are all
> winprinters these days. So you have to go there if you want to print
> color.

Over the years I've had a couple of inkjet printers, starting with a
Deskjet 500. All of them had trouble with ink cartridges drying out
after a couple of weeks non-use. And with that ink being rediculously
expensive, I decided not to bother with inktjets anymore. I had a
Laserjet 5L for about 6 years, I think. It was still on the original toner
cassette when I gave it to a friend.

Another department of a company I used to work for designed and
manufactured parts for (consumer) inkjet printers for HP and
others. According to the people who worked there, those printers were
definitely not engineered to last.

As for winprinters, I decided not to buy any printer if it doesn't understand
postscript. Life's too short to go hunting after obscure drivers.

And color laserprinters are coming down in price. I recently bought a
Color Laserjet 2550L for ¤ 439,-. Installing it amounted to feeding the
ppd file to CUPS. And it works every time. The colour output might not
be up to six-colour inkjet with special photo paper, but It Works For
Me. If it lasts as long and trouble-free as my old 6L, I consider it
money well-spent.

Roland
--
R.F. Smith /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
r s m i t h @ x s 4 a l l . n l \ / No HTML/RTF in e-mail
[url]http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/[/url] X No Word docs in e-mail
public key: [url]http://www.keyserver.net[/url] / \ Respect for open standards

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[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Roland Smith
> Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 12:03 PM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: Gerry Freymann; [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> Subject: Re: Lexmark X1100 printer
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 10:53:01PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>

> > The problem is that the cheap color inkjets on the market are all
> > winprinters these days. So you have to go there if you want to print
> > color.

>
> Over the years I've had a couple of inkjet printers, starting with a
> Deskjet 500. All of them had trouble with ink cartridges drying out
> after a couple of weeks non-use.

This is a thing of the past with the new Epson inkjets that use the
durabrite
ink.

> And with that ink being rediculously
> expensive, I decided not to bother with inktjets anymore. I had a
> Laserjet 5L for about 6 years, I think. It was still on the
> original toner
> cassette when I gave it to a friend.
>

Those are rated something around 5000 prints. I go through that in
a year and a half on my HP 4+

> Another department of a company I used to work for designed and
> manufactured parts for (consumer) inkjet printers for HP and
> others. According to the people who worked there, those printers were
> definitely not engineered to last.
>

This really depends on the printer. If your talking the HP Deskjets 5xx
that whole 5xx model line - then yes. If your talking the earlier Epson
ESC printers, then no. The big problem with those in fact was that they
were designed to be used in business that was printing all the time and
without enough printing they would dry up, and if that happened since the
print head was separate from the ink, it would ruin the printer. But,
they worked forever as long as you kept them printing.

This also wasn't true for the HP deskjet 1600 as that was also an
industrial
printer - it took HP printserver cards, and also came with a postscript
option.

Today though things have changed a lot - HP and the other printer
manufacturers have definite lines that are business and that are
consumer, and inkjets are in both lines.

> As for winprinters, I decided not to buy any printer if it
> doesn't understand
> postscript. Life's too short to go hunting after obscure drivers.
>

To all my other FreeBSD systems, the Epson C84 IS a color Postscript
printer. It's only a winprinter to the FreeBSD system that is doing the
conversion from Postscript to Epsonspeak.

> And color laserprinters are coming down in price. I recently bought a
> Color Laserjet 2550L for ¤ 439,-. Installing it amounted to feeding the
> ppd file to CUPS. And it works every time. The colour output might not
> be up to six-colour inkjet with special photo paper, but It Works For
> Me. If it lasts as long and trouble-free as my old 6L, I consider it
> money well-spent.

That's a 600 dpi print engine. And the 5000 page print at 5% for each
cartridge means 250 pages at 100% coverage per cartridge. Thus, if your
thinking of printing pictures - forget it. You might get 500-1000 pages
of pictures then all 3 color cartridges will be exhausted, and that's
a $300 bill to replace them all.

These kinds of color laserjets are good for businesses where they are
printing graphs and reports that make use of color. The image quality
isn't really good enough for photo or high quality picture and the
cost per page for printing pictures is pretty high. By contrast the
HP 1200 inkjet is a 1200 dpi printer. Ink cartridges are rated at 1750
pages at 5% and cost $34 per cartridge, which puts them comparable to
the HP color laserjet cartridges in price. The printer itself is
less than half the cost of the 2550L.

Ted