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Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly]

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On Dec 30, 2024, Kleene, Steven (kleenesj) wrote:
> On December 7, 2024 4:21 PM, I wrote:
> 
> > If you are able, please recommend a black-and-white Postscript laser
> > printer that will work well with Debian (Bookworm). ...
> 
> With advice from the group, I bought a Brother DCP-L2640DW driverless
> monochrome printer/scanner.  I run the fvwm window manager and can
> print with lp and scan with xsane.  I never installed the Brother
> printer, scanner, or BR-Script3 drivers..

I've done that before, through the IIRC lprng package.  Needed to edit
/etc/printcap as I recall... 

> 
> So I'm mostly happy, but I can't say I really understand who's doing what.  Here are three questions.
> 
> 1. Formerly (but still Bookworm), I had an HP LaserJet 5MP connected
> with a USB-to-parallel adapter.  I saw this character special device:A
> 
> crw-rw---- 1 root lp   180, 1 Dec  3 08:53 /dev/usb/lp1
> 
> I would typically print with something like "cat file > /dev/usb/lp1".
> Now, though, with the new laser and a straight USB connection (no
> wireless), I see these in /dev/usb:
> 
> crw------- 1 root root 180, 0 Dec  3 08:53 /dev/usb/hiddev0
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9796 Dec 21 13:01 /dev/usb/lp1

Er, /dev/usb/lp1 in this instance isn't a character device.

> 
> 2. I have a virtualbox Windows XP machine.  With the HP printer, it
> worked through CUPS and needed to find /dev/lp0.  So I just made a
> symbolic link from that to /dev/usb/lp1.  XP had a driver for the old
> HP.  Now, though, the devices and the printer have changed.  In XP, I
> can choose from a long list of prehistoric printer drivers.  Does that
> even matter with a driverless printer?  I also suspect the new device
> stub won't work from XP.  I don't really need to print from XP, but it
> was sometimes convenient.

Chances are XP won't be able to print to it directly -- you'll likely
need to work around the outdated VM's lack of capabilities and "Print to
PDF" or otherwise send the document to the host machine for printing.

> 
> 3. With xscan, the scan quality is good enough for most purposes.  But
> when I tested some fine engraving (like a dollar bill), it was less
> sharp than I get with my old Epson Perfection 2400 (from 2004).  In
> both cases I asked for 300 dpi and set JPG quality as high as
> possible.  The Brother at 600 dpi didn't match the Epson at 300 dpi.
> Would installing the Brother scanner driver be an improvement, or is
> this just a limitation of the hardware?

Good job, posting to the world that you're trying to create counterfeit
bills. ;)

It is intentional that scanners don't do well on currency (though IME,
they tend to just go "no" instead of creating low-res output).  It is
quite possible that Epson's control of it was in their (Windows?) driver
software, rather than in the hardware/firmware; whereas 20 years later,
Brother's put it in the printer internals.



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Re: seeking new laser printer "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2024-12-08 20:00 +0100
  Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-12-30 22:00 +0100
  Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2024-12-31 13:50 +0100
    Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] eben@gmx.us - 2024-12-31 18:10 +0100
      Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2024-12-31 18:40 +0100
        Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] eben@gmx.us - 2024-12-31 19:00 +0100
  Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2024-12-31 19:40 +0100
  Re: seeking new laser printer [solved, mostly] Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2025-01-02 02:50 +0100

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