Lexmark's Linux Secret

[Xilanaz]

as negated said, not being able to scan is because your running it as a network printer (cable or wireless), if you hook it up as usb printer this will work. As far as I know this is also the case for HP printer/scanner combo's

[mugginz]

I have not used all that many wireless all-in-one printer/scanner combos, but all the ones I have used don't actually allow you to scan from the PC side when in wireless/ethernet mode either in Windows, Linux, etc.

The Canon MP-640 allows you to both print from and scan to a Linux machine via Wi-FI and it works absolutely brilliantly.

[tester]

Nice for printers already bought but for new ones I'd still opt for HP due to there very nice opensource HPLIP which provides a great out-of-the-box experience on almost every Linux-distribution.

Is Lexmark planning on providing opensource drivers in the future?

[yvesvanbelle]

as negated said, not being able to scan is because your running it as a network printer (cable or wireless), if you hook it up as usb printer this will work. As far as I know this is also the case for HP printer/scanner combo's

I use a Brother MFC and i can scan over network. This is possible for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is all in the scannerdriver.

[yesterday]

Samsung also offers great linux support. They even have a linux gui installation app on their driver cd. Though I think they are proprietary, but I don't know for sure.

Well they work as a charm at least.

I'm pretty sure the samsung drivers are proprietary but there is also the splix project which offers free versions.

[mendieta]

Its great to see companies finally starting to really support Linux. Last time I bought a printer I went with HP because of their great Linux support in HPLIP. It seems next time I get a printer I might have a little more choice.

I agree, I couldn't believe this omission in the article. Michael, I guess an update to the article would be nice. We don't want to alienate our friends

More here:

http://hplipopensource.com/
http://www.hp.com/wwsolutions/linux/...ing/index.html

And yes, I also buy HP printers for that reason. Cheers!

[drag]

I agree, I couldn't believe this omission in the article. Michael, I guess an update to the article would be nice. We don't want to alienate our friends

This whole article is just bullshit from start to end.

A) First off this is not Lexmark being friendly to 'OSS' and 'Linux'.
A.1) It's not open source and
A.2) the installer is not only shit it is completely unnecessary. I've installed my entire f-ing OS using nothing but Deb files. The idea that that a simple package or two is not going to be good enough for a printer driver is not only inane it just shows the incompetance of the people that made the driver.

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B) Lexmark has had proprietary drivers _FOR_LINUX_ since the beginning of FOREVER.

AT LEAST since 2002, probably before that.

You know why most people did not know this? Because the drivers were shit and the installer was shit and it's far more cost effective for 99% of everybody out there to simple scrap the drivers and go with a company that properly supports Linux. So anybody with half a brain would not bring it up so to avoid confusing people and making Linux look worse then it really was.

All this article should be talking about is the fact that Lexmark made their installer suck slightly less and added support for newer printers.


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C) If you want a cheap inkjet printer, which the 'pro905' is just a consumer inkjet, and your using Linux then you should buy HP or, if HP does not have printers that can provide what you want, then get Epson and be carefull and make sure it has good support.

Why? Because you just plug HP in and _GO_. That's it. No installers, no fiddling around with extracting the deb file out of some shit installer and doing a force install.

If your capable of plugging in a USB connector then your capable of installing a HP printer in most decent Linux distributions.

Oh, and unlike this printer, your scanner should work the majority of the time.

-------------------------------------------


What this driver is good for is people had the unfortunate mistake of buying a Lexmark Inkjet printer for Linux then they can probably get a chance at getting it working.

But no... this is Lexmark just being Lexmark. They have provided proprietary drivers for Linux for close to a decade now and they've sucked and the installer sucks.

It's just slightly less sucky now.

Whatever you do do NOT purchase a Lexmark printer unless it's a business-style and has native Postscript support. Linux can talk to any postscript printer...

[Xilanaz]

I use a Brother MFC and i can scan over network. This is possible for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is all in the scannerdriver.

interesting, thank you for that info, on the next all in one choice I know a little more

[b15hop]

I'm not a fan of Lexmark printers. In fact, I loath them... Linux support or not, I would be highly reluctant with buying one again. Mainly because of the trouble I've had with mine in the past. Good to see they are improving though. Maybe things are changing for them. ~shrug~ I'm sticking to my Samsung printer / scanner for the time being.

[bugmenot]

This whole article is just bullshit from start to end.

A) First off this is not Lexmark being friendly to 'OSS' and 'Linux'.
A.1) It's not open source and
A.2) the installer is not only shit it is completely unnecessary. I've installed my entire f-ing OS using nothing but Deb files. The idea that that a simple package or two is not going to be good enough for a printer driver is not only inane it just shows the incompetance of the people that made the driver.

--------------------------------------------------

B) Lexmark has had proprietary drivers _FOR_LINUX_ since the beginning of FOREVER.

AT LEAST since 2002, probably before that.

You know why most people did not know this? Because the drivers were shit and the installer was shit and it's far more cost effective for 99% of everybody out there to simple scrap the drivers and go with a company that properly supports Linux. So anybody with half a brain would not bring it up so to avoid confusing people and making Linux look worse then it really was.

All this article should be talking about is the fact that Lexmark made their installer suck slightly less and added support for newer printers.


-----------------------------------

C) If you want a cheap inkjet printer, which the 'pro905' is just a consumer inkjet, and your using Linux then you should buy HP or, if HP does not have printers that can provide what you want, then get Epson and be carefull and make sure it has good support.

Why? Because you just plug HP in and _GO_. That's it. No installers, no fiddling around with extracting the deb file out of some shit installer and doing a force install.

If your capable of plugging in a USB connector then your capable of installing a HP printer in most decent Linux distributions.

Oh, and unlike this printer, your scanner should work the majority of the time.

-------------------------------------------


What this driver is good for is people had the unfortunate mistake of buying a Lexmark Inkjet printer for Linux then they can probably get a chance at getting it working.

But no... this is Lexmark just being Lexmark. They have provided proprietary drivers for Linux for close to a decade now and they've sucked and the installer sucks.

It's just slightly less sucky now.

Whatever you do do NOT purchase a Lexmark printer unless it's a business-style and has native Postscript support. Linux can talk to any postscript printer...

Well said!! I agree 100%!