Peter> I have a 960 Photo printer. Excellent print quality and drivers Peter> were available on a RHL9 install. A friend has a 2200 running Peter> on a Mac: it appears to be identical to the 960, just wider to Peter> accomodate larger sheet size. Just make it clear, you're talking about the Epson printers here, right? Peter> That said, beware of consumeables $$$!!!!! Yeah, that's the gotcha. For me, the big issue is no hassle use from within Debian. The wife will also want to use it from Windows, but that's another story. Actually, now that I think about it, a Network printer (ok, samba shares would be fine too) is probably a key thing, so that we both have access to either printer (we already have a laserjet 4M) from either system. Of course she's upstairs and I'm in the basement. Lots of up and down in my future. :] Peter> I've spent far more in ink and paper since January than I paid Peter> for the printer! (And I really don't print a lot.) How many pictures can you print before you see to have to get new cartridges? Or is the paper the expensive part? John

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:45:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "Peter Gutowski" 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 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

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:16:19 -0400 From: "John Stoffel"

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"Robert" == Robert L Krawitz writes:

Robert, thank you for your *very* informative post! Robert> For Linux use, I would recommend the 2200 over the 960 hands Robert> down, if you can use Gimp-Print 5.0 (which is currently in Robert> beta). I have both of them. I consider myself qualified on Robert> this subject, as the Gimp-Print project lead. I'm very happy to use cutting edge software, I run a very upto date Debian setup. You'll have to build from source; the Debian packaging for 5.0 beta is currently broken. Robert> These printers are not the same; the 2200 uses UltraChrome Robert> inks (which are pigment-based) while the 960 uses Robert> conventional dye-based inks. Somewhat surprisingly, the Robert> 2200 has a wider gamut than the 960 (usually pigment inks Robert> have narrow gamut). However, it's not hard to get a good Robert> grayscale out of that printer. What other printers use these UltraChrome inks as well, which are (possibly) cheaper than the 2200? I don't think I need the bigger size, I'm mostly looking for a dedicated photo printer for home use, we already have the B&W laser for generic printing. I'm not even planning on using this new printer for color text prints. The only one that's cheaper is the R800, but that's currently marginally supported at best. In particular, it only operates in CMYK mode right now, and it's going to take me a while to get the red and blue inks (and gloss optimizer) working correctly. Robert> The 960, despite its tiny smallest drop size of 2 pl (vs. 4 pl Robert> for the 2200) does not produce as good output in my opinion. Robert> You really need to use the highest resolution (2880x1440) to Robert> get smooth texture, since printing with the 960 requires use Robert> of a lot of black ink. The 2200 has a "light black" (gray) Robert> ink that helps a lot, and in my experience you can get quite Robert> good quality even at 720 DPI and seldom need to go above Robert> 1440x720 DPI. There's a big performance difference right Robert> there! Sounds like a big difference in costs too, since you'll be using less ink. How important is the paper? Everything I've been reading says that using the Epson paper is really the only way to go. You're not using less ink at lower resolution. Paper is very important. I'd suggest the Epson papers, since the inks and papers are designed to work together. -- Robert Krawitz 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

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 15:24:33 -0400 From: "John Stoffel"

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"Robert" == Robert L Krawitz writes:

Robert> The only one that's cheaper is the R800, but that's currently Robert> marginally supported at best. In particular, it only operates Robert> in CMYK mode right now, and it's going to take me a while to Robert> get the red and blue inks (and gloss optimizer) working Robert> correctly. So it really sounds like the R200 or the R300(M) might be a better choice for me, since I don't want to spend a ton of money here. I know I'll be spending it on the paper/ink no matter what. Or an 960 might still be an ok choice? Unless you really need the Ultrachrome inks, I'd go with the R200 or R300. They're cheaper than the 960 and better tuned. -- Robert Krawitz 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

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 08 September 2004 10:08 am, John Stoffel wrote:

Andy, I misplaced the link to your doc on getting CUPS working with USB printers, can you resend it?

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/users-guide.pdf See Chapter 3, it might help. Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBP4hZHl0iXDssISsRAkm9AJ4q/6Tva2vQPb2UmHRaSwMkha4ncACggC58 fPIqVBUJCwwDesxAuFqL/R4= =2qj1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I just wanted to follow up about some issues I had with my new Epson R300 photo printer. Basically, each time I updated my debian systems (apt-get update) the printer would stop working. Something kept chaning the permissions of the /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb driver. After enough time fighting it, I finally found out that I needed to do a: dpkg-reconfigure cupsys to tell it to enable USB printer drivers. End of problem. It was a pain to figure out since I originally only had a network printer, so didn't even think of enabling USB printing. Silly me. Every day (or so) I find out new things about debian. Some good, some bad. My newest thing is NLE (Non-Linear Editing) of video. Kino is so-so, cinelerra crashes instantly all the time. Might try main-actor, but not sure I want to spend the money when I can just use my wife's machine and Windows software to edit. Sure, I should probably thing about a Mac OS X.x something box with their movie editing software.