[buug] Best XP emulator?

[jose d lopez]

I've probably bought about 15 "Brother HL-2140"  laser printer and  
similar models (USB/ Ethernet/Wireless) in the last five years for  
myself, friends, family homes/small offices. They are about $80 -  
sometimes less with Rebate. Print b/w only. But small, fast. Toner  
cartridges are pretty cheap, $32 from NewEgg - generics are cheaper  
-   about 1 per year for average use.

I've attached them to Macs, Windoze, *nix. I usually attached them to  
an always on desktop and enable printer sharing or connected directly  
to the Router. Then, anyone can print from anywhere. From laptops,  
Palm, Netbooks.



On Mar 18, 2009, at 3:53 PM, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com):
>
>> So it is mostly the issue of manufacturer quality...and low-income
>> newbies like myself, are stuck with a limited selection of crummy
>> printers.
>
> You know, a person of limited means should favour either a well-chosen
> used middle-of-the road laser printer _or_ a new, low-end, but equally
> well chosen, laser printer.  I'd do that _regardless_ of OS.
>
> I would eschew inkjet printers entirely, with one small exception,  
> noted
> below.  Why?  Because the overwhelming majority of them, and possibly
> all of them without exception for all I know, are sucker bets.  They  
> do
> not save you money.  They merely seem like they would, on account of  
> low
> initial acquisition cost.  The subsequent cost of ink cartridges, even
> if you use offbrand ones, kills your budget.
>
> Here's an example of a reasonably well-chosen laser:  Brother model  
> HL-2140.
> You can find it new for about $80.  It's USB, 23 PPM print engine,
> 2400x600 DPI resolution, B&W, 8MB RAM built-in.  Perfectly good on any
> OS.
>
> I wouldn't doubt you can save one Andrew Jackson, maybe even two, over
> that market price, if you buy a miserable, money-burning inkjet,
> instead, but that would be a really dumb thing to do.
>
> The usage exception:  There are occasions when you simply have an
> arguable need to print in colour, e.g., to print out colour  
> photographs.
> If so, one can argue that you might want to save up for a _second_
> printer, an inkjet, that you carefully avoid using on any other
> occasion.  But having an inkjet as your primary printer is, alas, a
> self-defeating economics error.
>
>> My point being this: most newbies would simply assume that any  
>> Windoze
>> printer listed as Linux compatible would assume that the resulting
>> printouts would be of equal quality.
>
> You will typically get about equal quality _if_ you are willing to
> follow the linuxprinting.org advice about the best _current_ PPD  
> file to
> use, as opposed to one that merely is on-hand and minimally works.
> Sometimes, that means going out and grabbing the latest _good_ PPD  
> from
> the scumbag manufacturer's driver set, either for Linux or for OS X.
> I've found that, typically, the people making the claim that "print
> quality is worse with Linux" have _not_ done that: They've just sat
> there and lazily clicked around with the default print filters  
> (driver)
> furnished inside their Linux distros.
>
> Of course, if you're talking about _colour_ printing of images on very
> low-end inkjets, that is precisely where some manufacturers will be
> making the most effort to keep their "secret sauce" as secret as
> possible.  If you have chosen badly, you will probably have a more
> difficult time getting good results.
>
>
>
>> It is very difficult to find any compatible printer that one
>> can witness first-hand, the print results via Linux, before purchase.
>
> If the store won't let you boot Knoppix or Sidux and print a test  
> page,
> you're in the wrong store.
>
> Live CDs are your friend.
>
> But anyway, the linuxprinting.org database has pretty good per-model
> information about print quality with different PPDs, and, also, you  
> can
> find information on-line.
>
> Basically, all you need is the time and care to bother doing your
> research _before_ buying.  Since you're talking about what Linux users
> do who don't have a great deal of money to waste, I would think it's
> obvious:  Do your homework before buying.
>
> Or, if you haven't done your homework before buying, and ended up  
> with a
> lemon, there's a remedy called "selling and buying, used":  You  
> offload
> the turkey, get cash for it, spend that cash on something better.
>
>
>> :)) I actually did get a cheap USB modem that does dialup nicely in
>> LInux: the Actiontec. Total eBay cost including shipping: $34. But I
>> did my homework first.
>
> Good!  The Actiontecs that use Lucent Venus chipsets, such as the
> USB56012 Model UM100, appear to be OK.  You have to watch out,
> especially because models come and go.  Me, I'd probably scrounge  
> around
> until I could find a used serial-connected US Robotics Courier  
> external.
>
>
>
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