Printers and NetBSD

This is a living document -- in other words, the content will probably change. (The current info is derived from several sources, including old mailing list and newsgroup postings. Some information is attributed.) Please share your experiences with using printers with NetBSD. In particular, what printers work well with NetBSD? What printers don't work well with NetBSD? USB or parallel or network? What version(s) of NetBSD? What versions of ghostscript, cups, gimp-print, etc.? Any special command-line options or configurations? Printer (and ink) costs? Print speed? Quality?

This document contains:

• a list of printers by vendor and model that work well with NetBSD and don't work well with NetBSD;
• basic information on what to look for in a printer;
• links to further information.
• information on contributing to this webpage;

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List of printers by vendor and model

• Epson
• Hewlett Packard

Epson

Epson Stylus Color 800

Julio Merino successfully used a parallel-only Epson Stylus Color 800 with apsfilter. "I also tried gimp-print (through cups) that gave much better results with the Epson." (30/Sep/2002)

Epson C80

David Brownlee has a Epson C80 that works with USB on NetBSD 1.6.1. (He said he has issues with converting postscript to epson codes with ghostscript though.)

Hewlett Packard

HP Deskjet 843C

Benedikt Meurer wrote (30/Sep/2002):

I have a HP Deskjet 843C running fine with NetBSD 1.5.x and 1.6/-current using CUPS now, but it also worked fine with ghostscript before (I use the USB interface to connect the printer).

HP Deskjet 920C

Julio Merino has an HP Deskjet 920C that "works fine" and "has the same quality with gimp-print (cups) and apsfilter (lpd+ghostscript)." It is used via parallel. (This printer also has USB.) (30/Sep/2002)

HP DeskJet 970Cxi

Jukka Marin uses ulpt (USB) with HP DeskJet 970Cxi without problems (under NetBSD 1.6.1.) (16/Jul/2003)

HP LaserJet 5

Jeremy C. Reed uses a LaserJet 5 by piping postscript into

/usr/pkg/bin/gs -q -dSAFER -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -r300 -sDEVICE=lj5mono \
-sOutputFile=$TEMPFILE -

The package is ghostscript-6.01nb4 (Aladdin Postscript interpreter), but older versions used too.

HP LaserJet 1200

Jukka Marin uses ulpt (USB) with HP LaserJet 1200 without problems (under NetBSD 1.6.1.) (16/Jul/2003)

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What to look for in a printer

• need to do

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Links to further information

• http://www.linuxprinting.org/ -- information about over 900 printers and 245 free printer drivers that work and don't work under Linux.
• http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net/productssupported.php -- list of Hewlett-Packard (and related) models supported by open source HPIJS project.

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Contribute / Share information

Please share your experiences or information with using printers with NetBSD.

• Model/version?
• basic hardware and interfaces information
• what version(s) of NetBSD?
• what works?
• what doesn't work?
• what software and versions?
• any other information (URLs, dmesg output, etc.) or opinions

Please send your information to jeremy@reedmedia.net

Last updated: 16/Jul/2003
30/Sep/2002