My ageing HP PSC 1215 inkjet has started to give problems when printing from Mint 13kde and I’m unsure whether it is a printer issue or an o/s issue. The set-up is a carry-over from my old Vista days where the printer worked normally.
When I print a document, the printer will sometimes print at its ‘normal’ output rate, other times will print at about half the ‘normal’ output rate. By this I don’t mean that it is working more slowly, rather that the paper is coming through more slowly - as if the print head is printing in one direction only - rather than ‘back and forth’ and consequently taking twice the time to print.
If I run a print job directly within the printer (i.e. scan and print off a copy), the printer runs normally, so I infer from that, that a print request from the computer is somehow being handled differently. Is it possible that one application (say, Libre Office) will deliver information in a different way than another application (say printing a pdf) or could it possibly be a driver conflict (can an application choose it’s own method, as it were)?
How can I find the information on which driver the printer is using and, if a conflict exists, can I ‘force’ the printer to use the faster method?
I think it’s possible - nowadays, the printers don’t always receive raw input from the PC, they’ll do some of the “translating” themselves. If you can nail down some of the behaviour (i.e. ALWAYS slow in LibreOffice/from PDF/from Firefox or Chrome/etc), might be worth logging a bug with hplib.
I’d double-check against LiveCD performance, in case the problem is down to something in your install
Ok, guys - thanks anyway. It’s not a major issue in itself, the printer does print but I like things to be ‘spot on’… (My missus says I’m OCD ::))
Actually… this printer is now several years old and must be getting near to end-of-life. It’s started to throw up odd errors about cartridges and the like even when they’ve been replaced. I’ve considered getting a cheap-end laser - a b&w would do for me - but the ‘gaffer’ would like colour, (don’t know why, we don’t do that much printing anymore as it is…). Any recommendations? I’d even go for second-hand if I could find a good one. Or if I could persuade her to go to Morrison’s to print off any colour stuff there (for little money) and just have a b&w for home?
Any advice welcome! And thanks again for an excellent forum
Samsung MLP (mono lasers), and CLP (colour lasers) have a pretty good reputation for working in Linux (Samsung generally provide Linux drivers in the box) and being pretty reliable.
(not personal experience)
Are there any requirements, such as ehternet and/or wireless ?
We really don’t do much colour printing any more - photos are usually burned to disk and viewed on the TV. T’other half gets in a bit of a panic if the colour plays up (it’s usually the colour cartridge that throws up errors, despite any amount of cleaning/fiddling) as she flits abroad every so often and she prints out flight info and boarding passes etc. Some of the essential details are in red and don’t appear, hence the panic!
Just having a peek at the Samsung CLP-360 at £100 new from Printerland. This seems reasonable enough for light/medium use and cheaper than I expected. Replacement toners seem a bit steep though - what’s your thoughts on non-branded toners?
I can’t answer that, no experience (in fact I do very little in the way of printing … even the kids take their stuff to college on pendrives and print it there rather than print it here and have to lug it around with them … maybe someone else has used unbranded toners ?
Just having a peek at the Samsung CLP-360 at £100 new from Printerland. This seems reasonable enough for light/medium use and cheaper than I expected. Replacement toners seem a bit steep though - what's your thoughts on non-branded toners?
You have to beware some printers don’t recognise unbranded cartridges ie I have a Samsung SLX 4300 in my office and I got a cheap Chinese cartridge and it wouldn’t recognise it, there was a convoluted workaround I found on You Tube and after that it accepted unbranded cartridges no problem.
It was however worth the effort as a new genuine cartridge is around £50 and I got 2 unbranded for £25
I can vouch for the printer though, I have a Samsung CLP-325W at home which looks identical to the CLP-360 and it’s been bullet proof and a breeze to set up in Linux.
