# Looking for modern desk sized A4/letter sized laser-printer



## humancentipede (Apr 9, 2016)

That can print from FreeBSD, and are still available to buy new in stores.
Please tell me if you know of one..  It is not for professional printing, so I don't care much if it wrinkles the paper a bit or have bad dpi.
The printers I found in compatibility lists are heavily outdated, unsold everywhere, and the size of a small cabin.
Some printer out there must be small, available in stores, and not only for Windows/Mac/Linux?


----------



## shepper (Apr 9, 2016)

Your avatar says you are in Sweden.  I have set up Brother 2270 in the States with linux/cups using a pxlmono based ppd.  pxlmono is the ghostscript PCL6 driver that is also well supported in FreeBSD. I just bought an HL-5450DN (Postscript-emulation) OpenBSD/lpr.  The 2270 has been replaced by the 2360 which I have seen for 89USD + shipping. The HL-5450 has a bigger footprint than the HL-L2360DW.

The key is to have PCL6/PCL5e compatibility.  Even better is Postscript/Postscript-emulation support which increases the printer cost.

Here is a prior Thread 51190 where I went through this


----------



## trev (Apr 10, 2016)

HP Lasrejet Pro 400 (I bought the duplex/network version M401dn) which is postscript compatible. $A 260. Still current here downunder.


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Apr 10, 2016)

I see the Samsung ML series for sale and should be under $100 or close to it. I had one a few years ago which worked very well, but don't know about newer models though.


----------



## wblock@ (Apr 10, 2016)

Years back, HP's PostScript clone was the best for compatibility with the real thing.  Okidata was okay, too.

I have not used many recent HP laser printers, but would still be inclined to look at them first.  At least the business line, not the "personal" line.


----------



## shepper (Apr 10, 2016)

OJ said:


> I see the Samsung ML series for sale


There are a number of Samsung ML printers some of which only support the SPLIX print filter.  Your life will be easier if you choose one that supports postscript emulation and/or PCL6/PCL5e.


wblock@ said:


> I have not used many recent HP laser printers, but would still be inclined to look at them first. At least the business line, not the "personal" line.


The business line has a reputation for dependability but tend to have large footprints and are expensive new.  I think Brother, Canon and Samsung provide more value in the "personal" line.  The cheapest HP laser 1102W/1109W uses a zjs data stream protocol that needs the print/foo2zjs filter.  I have not seen any forum posts on this but did find a mailing list post that this does work with FreeBSD/lpr.


----------



## humancentipede (Apr 10, 2016)

Thanks.  HP LaserJet Pro P1102w seems to be available in the swedish hp-store.  And it's in the price range of low budget consumer printers, and should be compatible according to this list: http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/supported_devices/laserjet.html

But how do I know if it can handle plain text? I also wanna print stuff with lpr, like some wall of text manpages I encounter. That's too much to read on the screen.
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/printing.html <- says it must be ASCII-compatible.


----------



## wblock@ (Apr 10, 2016)

Printers with "W" in the name are usually host-based or wireless, and either can be a problem.  The old rule still works: get something that understands PostScript natively.  PCL also works, but usually does not print as quickly.


----------



## shepper (Apr 10, 2016)

Although it can be done 1102w in FreeBSD1 and 1102w in FreeBSD2,  disabling the cd-rom feature and uploading firmware, each time the printer is powered up, would not be necessary with other printer models.

If you are set on HP, I would look at the M201DW Specs.  They are about 150USD and support PCL6.  The M201DW should not need any special setup beyond that in the FreeBSD Handbook Printing.

For less money, the Brother HL-L2360 has a fully closing paper tray while offering roughly the same print speed, ethernet, wireless and duplexing.


----------



## wblock@ (Apr 10, 2016)

That 1102w is USB only, has the oddball PDL, and the paper will collect dust.  Dust sticks to the rollers and makes them slip, and that leads to paper jams.  A used LaserJet 4050N is a better printer in every way, and probably costs less.  But it's much larger.

The M201DW is better, having Ethernet and PostScript built in.  I've seen a very similar model in use, and it seems okay, if not the best construction.  Overpriced, in my opinion, but new HP lasers usually are.


----------



## humancentipede (Apr 10, 2016)

The most affordable I have found in Sweden is Laserjet Pro m402d (€200). It has HP PCL 5, HP PCL 6, HP Postscript Level 3-emulation, direct PDF (v1.7), URF, PCLM, PWG and HP says it's UNIX-compatible.
In their specs... I guess it's a good thing, since FreeBSD is closely related 
It also doesn't require some awkward plug in thing in hplip.


----------



## shepper (Apr 10, 2016)

Jggimi, in this DaemonForums Thread successfully setup lpr printing for the preceeding model.  The only difference between this setup in OpenBSD and FreeBSD is the naming of the spool directories.  He has not said anything negative about the printer and is approachable if you have more questions.


----------



## shepper (Apr 10, 2016)

humancentipede said:


> But how do I know if it can handle plain text?


Postscript, Postscript-emulation and PCL5/PCL6 printers handle plain text.  There are also some printing utilities (print/a2ps print/print/enscript-a4) that input plain text and output the text, nicely formatted, as postscript.


----------



## humancentipede (Apr 10, 2016)

shepper said:


> Although it can be done 1102w in FreeBSD1 and 1102w in FreeBSD2,  disabling the cd-rom feature and uploading firmware, each time the printer is powered up, would not be necessary with other printer models.
> 
> If you are set on HP, I would look at the M201DW Specs.  They are about 150USD and support PCL6.  The M201DW should not need any special setup beyond that in the FreeBSD Handbook Printing.
> 
> For less money, the Brother HL-L2360 has a fully closing paper tray while offering roughly the same print speed, ethernet, wireless and duplexing.



Looks like the M201DW have postscript in the circuits, while still being 20 euro cheaper? , and its only emulated ps on m402d ? I'm clueless on what difference it makes? 
.. the 402 have 48 hours delivery, and the m201dw have 10-20 days delivery here.. Maybe its best go to for the non emulated ps thing , and wait a bit longer? or pcl5/6 will be enough for casual printing,  ?


----------



## wblock@ (Apr 10, 2016)

Most low-end printers that are PostScript-compatible have emulated PostScript.  The quality levels vary, as I mentioned earlier.  HP's emulated PS is very good.

A PCL-only printer can still be used.  PS documents are sent through Ghostscript before printing.  On a reasonably fast system, rendering the document into a PCL bitmap is pretty quick.  It is the transfer to the printer that can take longer than sending a PS file directly.  This is also a reason that wireless networking can be a bad choice for printers.  Sending a large bitmap takes a while, even longer at wireless speeds.


----------



## shepper (Apr 10, 2016)

My sense is that the m400 series is faster (faster processor/larger memory module) and a little more durable than the m200 series.  The 400 series can also be had without duplex capability and without wireless.

I think some networking capability is nice for future proofing, otherwise the computer that the printer is attached to via usb/parallel port, needs to be powered up for the printer to be accessible.


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Apr 11, 2016)

shepper said:


> There are a number of Samsung ML printers some of which only support the SPLIX print filter. Your life will be easier if you choose one that supports postscript emulation and/or PCL6/PCL5e.



I agree that it's not the best choice, but they were down to just over $50 at one point - so, a cheap fix. I admit that I did get tired of it and am now using a XEROX WorkCentre 3220/DN which I got for around $350 a couple of years ago. A quick search and I see them still available for $290. It supports postscript natively and has been working well for us here.


----------



## phoenix (Apr 11, 2016)

humancentipede said:


> That can print from FreeBSD, and are still available to buy new in stores.
> Please tell me if you know of one..  It is not for professional printing, so I don't care much if it wrinkles the paper a bit or have bad dpi.
> The printers I found in compatibility lists are heavily outdated, unsold everywhere, and the size of a small cabin.
> Some printer out there must be small, available in stores, and not only for Windows/Mac/Linux?



We have a Samsung Xpress-something (aka C460w) at home that works perfectly (as a printer) with FreeBSD 9.2 and CUPS. I've printed to it from within FreeBSD, from my Android phone using Let's Print Droid (a CUPS client), and from a eeePC running Linux (via CUPS).

I have not tested any of the scanner features from FreeBSD, but the Windows drivers work well for that


It's a network printer, supporting 10/100 Ethernet or 802.11n wireless. And has a phone jack in case you want to use it as an old school fax.


----------



## scottro (Sep 16, 2016)

For what it's worth, I can confirm that it does print with FreeBSD with no problems. There's a FreeBSD port that supplies the ppd file, I've already forgotten the name, and I just copied the ppd that I'd already installed on Linux.

EDIT: I had had some issues with scanning, but this is the resolution.
For network scanning, I came across an ArchLinux Wiki article that gave the answer.  FreeBSD recognized the scanner if attached by USB, but to get it to work over the network, I found the scanner listed  in /usr/local/etc/sane.d/xerox_mpf.conf.  The entry read

```
#Samsung C460 Series
usb 0x04e8 0x3468
```
I added the IP address underneath, in this case, 192.168.1.50 so that it now reads

```
#Samsung C460 Series
usb 0x04e8 0x3468
tcp 192.168.1.50
```
Once I did this, scanimage -L found it and scanning worked without problem.

I'm adding this info to a somewhat old thread because it's one of the few things that come up when one googles samsung c640w and FreeBSD


----------

