Still in search of that perfect desktop distribution

SalixOS is not rolling release. They do a release after a Slackware release.

I'm so glad Khamul has decided for me that my Epson inkjet printer that actually does a beautiful job with photos is "junk". I didn't know that I had to use equipment from a Khamul-approved list. FWIW, there are very expensive printers that don't work with Linux either. Some manufacturers (HP, Epson) do a good job supporting Linux. Other (Lexmark, Canon, etc...) do not and lots and bunches of their stuff up and down the product lines just don't work. tracyanne has this 100% right when it comes to printers.

Having said that, Linux supports more hardware out of the box than Windows does by a wide margin. The difference is that Windows is preinstalled and Linux is not. The other difference is that every manufacturer supports Windows while only some support Linux.

FWIW, the contention that only video and cheap printers are unsupported is also wrong. There are still wireless chipsets which are unsupported, cameras which are unsupported, scanners which are unsupported, and so on.

In the last couple of weeks I have tried ROSA Beta, Mageia 2 Beta 3 and Linux Mint KDE in my search for the perfect KDE distro so far the best of the bunch is Mint KDE both ROSA and Mageia 2 have a lot of issues which is not suprising as they are beta after all.

Mint KDE also has issues but are minor and probably related to the fact that the KDE is a slightly outdated version.

I very much liked Mageia 2 its going to be very impressive when it's finalised but I do wish they would fix their Firefox package as its system proxy settings is broken just as in Mageia 1. Replaced it with the official download from Mozilla and it works just fine, it must be something the Mageia devs are doing or their is a broken dependency somewhere as it works in Mandriva and ROSA.

@caitlyn Canon have significantly improved their Linux support, I just installed a brand new Canon PIXMA M420 here at home and it all works great on Linux using the Canon supplied drivers for scanning and printing. The scanning across a wireless network is impressive the Canon scanning app ScangearMP works in conjunction with Gimp and is easy to use.

Both drivers were simple to install and come in RPM and Deb packages and as long as the printer is properly configured and on at the time of install everything is auto-detected it really was so simple and it was actually faster to set up my linux machines than my windows machines.

TurboPrint is a great option for color printers on Linux. It costs a few bucks, oh noes, and you get full printer functionality like ink levels and color adjustments. It would be lovely if hardware vendors would pull their heads out and open their specs and drivers, but as long as paranoid eyepee PHBs exist we'll have to work around them.

@caitlyn: I'm sure any Lexmark or Canon printer that supports Postscript or PDF will work just fine with Linux. As for your inkjet printer, let it sit for a few months without printing anything, then see if you can print anything out of it again without replacing the ink cartridges or wasting a ton of ink on "cleaning cycles". And last I heard, wireless wasn't a big problem any more, though it certainly was 5+ years ago.

Actually, Khamul, you're incorrect yet again. Lexmark and Canon printers are painfully notorious for being incompatible with Linux, and your comment clearly shows that you have no experience with using them. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but bear in mind that it should be based, at least remotely, in reality, especially when it comes to technical issues.

@Icafiero: Exactly which printers are "painfully notorious" for being incompatible with Linux? Any decent business printer for the last 20 years has supported Postscript; you don't need "drivers", you just need to send the printer a postscript file. Lately (last 5+ years), any decent business printer also supports PDF in addition to Postscript. Again, no "drivers" needed; you just connect to the right network port (9100) and send it your file. If a printer needs "drivers", then it isn't a business printer. That said, I don't think I've ever seen a Canon business printer, though I have seen Lexmark ones. Generally, the big brands are HP, Ricoh, and Xerox. I've never had much trouble printing to any of these once I figure out the IP address.

What Khamul has to say about printers may or may not be accurate, in technical terms. But it's also irrelevant in terms of non techie but potential Linux users. All they see is their favourite printer, that works great on Windows, not working on Linux, so they blame Linux. The problem isn't Linux, it's the hardware manufacturer not supporting Linux, either at all, or on that model.

OK. Now I'm curious

-- are there any Postscript-compliant printers that don't work well with Linux?

I thought the painful part these days was "multi-function" printers. And I've sometimes wondered if multi-function devices that * print * well enough as Postscript-compliant devices might sometimes still be a pain for scanning or faxing tasks.

- - -

PS: (Personally, I just stick to HP for printing, though I believe Brother also supports their hardware pretty well.)

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PPS: According to spell-check (from Firefox, I believe) "multi-function" is incorrectly spelled, but "mufti-function" is a valid possibility". .... ???

Well I have no problems with either my Canon PIXMA Multifunction or my Canon camera on linux so I will happily doff my hat to Canon for making it a very painless experience unlike my last Epson where they point blank refused to implement their own binary blob scanner driver and it was never implemented in sane either which is one of the reasons I went with Canon this time round as I checked before purchasing that working linux drivers were available.

One thing I did note was that the Linux drivers are not available from the Canon US site you have to go to Canon Europe to get them, what is up with that?

Quoting: I'm sure any Lexmark or Canon printer that supports Postscript or PDF will work just fine with Linux.

I believe this is true and correct statement, that is what PS & PDF were created for and have been very successful.

I think most people's complains are about some printer multi-functions not working well on Linux.

YMMV.

My Epson NX-305 all in one works just fine under Linux: scanning and printing are supported out of the box. All the functionality you get under Windows you also get under Linux, including things like ink levels.

Funny, I had an old Epson which had been boxed up for about two years. It needed new ink cartridges and I saw them on clearance. I bought them, installed them, made sure everything was working perfectly (which it was) and gave it to someone who needed it. Maybe if I had only let it sit for six months as Khamul suggested I would have had a problem. After two years everything was fine on an Epson Stylus Color 600.

My Epson was a CX5800F, scanner was never supported on linux and the FAX failed 1 month after the warranty expired, so i phoned them up hoping they would give me some leeway on the warranty and fix it but they wouldn't so i put them off my xmas list.

I did have one Epson clog up on me after a period of non-use but since I was using cheap third party ink which I have no intention of ever using again in any printer, it would be harsh to blame Epson for that.

As for the Canon ink level it is supported on the USB connection but not wireless, which is no biggie as the Canon has a nice colour LCD display and clearly shows ink levels everything else appears to be well supported.

I offer this as an interesting piece argument of information, not as supporting argument for anything I've already said.

I've been in the process of setting up a small recording studio, for myself, I'm using Ardour, Audacity and Hydrogen, mostly with Rosegarden amd other bits and pieces, as I discover a potential use for them. The biggest problem I've had so far is locating hardware that works with Ardour, that isn't super expensive. It appears, that almost all the affordable (read cheap) consumer grade hardware only works with Windows or Mac, the really expensive Professional grade Hardware almost always includes Linux and naturally Ardour.

I have managed to find some hardware that suits my needs, and I can afford, but It took a lot of work and phone calls by the salesman at the Music store where I get my gear. It's not cheap, being at the lower end of the Professional range, but I can afford it.

The thing that annoys me here is that a Windows or Mac user can choose cheap and cheerful right through to Expensive and Professional, and they don't have to spend days, and phone calls to find something that meets their needs... if they are lucky.

bn

The author makes contradictory assumptions, that it must be easy enough for Grandma and Grandpa, who still make fire by rubbing sticks together and use grunts instead of language, and it must also offer advanced features in the installer like LVM and a firewall. Microsoft caters to the "don't want to know anything" crowd. Let 'em have 'em.

Is montezuma at a loss for words today? This is the third thread with a two letter post from him.

He must be suffering from a sore throat, it is allergy season. :-)

Re: montezuma

I admire his brevity. . . but I wish I had a table of definitions for his acronyms!

bn = "Been under the weather lately. Probably caught it from someone at work. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen."

LOL I had a brain fart this morning and kept posting a reply in the wrong thread. Early onset dementia I expect.