On Friday 29 May 2009, Robin Laing wrote: >Alan Cox wrote: >> O> is done by the host computer. There are things the printer can do that >> >>> will break the printer. We are talking about things like how long to >>> heat the little wire to flash-steam the ink etc. Do it for too long and >>> you damage the wire. On the mickysoft driver, this is all buried in a >>> binary blob and while folks could in theory binary edit it, they won't >>> for the most part. In the OSS world, if they released sources, that >> >> You honestly think the bad guys wouldn't just sniff the wire, disassemble >> the driver and write printer exploding worms given the chance. >> >>> almost certainly wouldn't be as true. This puts Lexmark in a very bad >>> position. If they open it up they would need to figure out a way to >>> tell if a modified driver caused damage and not cover that damage under >>> warranty repairs. >> >> I don't doubt that the printer control is done from the PC end, but I'd >> be suprised if Lexmark were dumb enough to just trust the PC commands. >> You don't DRM your toner cartridges and then act careless on the rest >> surely. I'd have thought they'd have DRM on the driver interface too ! >> >> Linux actually supports a fair number of "dumb" printers, usually by >> rasterising with ghostscript and then driving the rasteriser through some >> custom printer driver. >> >> And printers are one area where the what to buy data is really quite good: >> >> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/OpenPrinting >> >> Alan > >I have owned Lexmark, Epson and HP. I purchased a Lexmark when they had >Linux drivers on their site. It worked okay but never great and not all >the features. More issues with ink and heads. Same issues that my >Windows friends had. Lexmark is now in the same levels as Microsoft for >quality. > They have been on the next shelf down from M$ in my cataloging for years. >My Epson printers were great until one got into a weird state that I >couldn't even talk to a support number without a credit card, even to >ask where the local repair center was. Printer became trash before I >was off the phone. Ouch! OTOH, I have not needed any Epson support, ever. >HP has been great. I just purchased an all-in-one to replace an HP >printer that needs new heads (>$100) and I hooked it up using wireless >network. Opened HPLIP and it found the printer, set it up and all >worked as expected. Scanning and printing were perfect. > >We use HP and Xerox at work and I would love to get a Xerox Phaser for >home but that is out of my price range. :) I hear that! There seems to be a major fee attached to the use of the word Xerox. >I am getting a netbook or notebook for my daughter this summer and I am >looking at what is going to be supplied with Linux out of the box. > >This may be something to look at. > http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/ > >I doubt Fedora will run on it though. Lack of KDE would be a problem >for me. :) Me too Robin. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. <https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp> The proof of the pudding is in the eating. -- Miguel de Cervantes -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
