Printing under Ubuntu

[Dave Hall]

On Thu, 2008-05-15 at 21:20 +1000, Simon wrote:
> My Canon Printer/Scanner combo recently died and apparently it's cheaper 
> for the warranty company to offer me a cheque for $103 rather than fix 
> the thing.  What I'm interested in is what printer/scanner combos others 
> have had success with under Ubuntu. 
> 
> The cannon functioned but only just.  I could only print at 600dpi.

Canon don't have a good track record of supporting FOSS.

> It doesn't really matter how the scanner functions under linux as the 
> machine will be attached to a Windows box and I'll be printing to it via 
> samba.  (Unless someone can explain how I can hook the printer/scanner 
> up to my file/print server [Ubuntu Hardy] and print *and* scan with it 
> from both Windows *and* Ubuntu)

I have a HP Officejet J5780 which works well - with FOSS drivers bundled
in ubuntu.  It priced at around $180+ on staticice.com.au (comparison
shopping site).

I have used it connected directly to my ubuntu laptop in the past.  Now
it is networked via a Debian etch box so all my machines can print and
scan files on it.  The ADF is handy for network scanning.

I haven't tried the fax on it, mainly due to me being to lazy to get
under the house to run another cable for it.  I would probably use
hylafax for a "fax machine" anyway.

Cheers

Dave