Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:45:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "Peter Gutowski" <peter@linuxchamps.com> I have a 960 Photo printer. Excellent print quality and drivers were available on a RHL9 install. A friend has a 2200 running on a Mac: it appears to be identical to the 960, just wider to accomodate larger sheet size. That said, beware of consumeables $$$!!!!! I've spent far more in ink and paper since January than I paid for the printer! (And I really don't print a lot.) For Linux use, I would recommend the 2200 over the 960 hands down, if you can use Gimp-Print 5.0 (which is currently in beta). I have both of them. I consider myself qualified on this subject, as the Gimp-Print project lead. These printers are not the same; the 2200 uses UltraChrome inks (which are pigment-based) while the 960 uses conventional dye-based inks. Somewhat surprisingly, the 2200 has a wider gamut than the 960 (usually pigment inks have narrow gamut). However, it's not hard to get a good grayscale out of that printer. The 960, despite its tiny smallest drop size of 2 pl (vs. 4 pl for the 2200) does not produce as good output in my opinion. You really need to use the highest resolution (2880x1440) to get smooth texture, since printing with the 960 requires use of a lot of black ink. The 2200 has a "light black" (gray) ink that helps a lot, and in my experience you can get quite good quality even at 720 DPI and seldom need to go above 1440x720 DPI. There's a big performance difference right there! The problem with the 2200 is that Gimp-Print 4.2 doesn't drive it well, since the internal architecture doesn't cope very well with the fact that the gray (and photo black) inks aren't neutral. If you really can't switch to Gimp-Print 5.0 yet, the 2200 isn't a good choice; I'd recommend the R200 or the like. -- Robert Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu> Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@uunet.uu.net Project lead for Gimp Print -- http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." --Eric Crampton